Other Scientific Names
Hydropsalis brasiliana [Sibley and Monroe (1990, 1993)], Hydropsalis brasiliana [Stotz et al. (1996)], Hydropsalis brasiliana [BirdLife International (2004)]
Habitat
Subtropical and tropical seasonally wet / flooded grassland, dry savanna, subtropical and tropical heavily degraded former forest. From sea-level - 500 m.
Scissor-tailed Nightjar (Hydropsalis torquata) [XC345050]
by Fernando Igor de Godoy from Reserva Ecol\u00f3gica Costanera Sur, Buenos Aires, Argentina (call)
Scissor-tailed Nightjar (Hydropsalis torquata) [XC186860]
by Caio Brito from S\u00e3o jos\u00e9 dos Campos\/SP, Brazil (call)
Subspecies
Species name has normally been given as brasiliana, but this name is based on a drawing and a written description, and is not clearly identifiable as present species, indeed some points would appear to preclude this. Torquata, proposed by same author on the following page of the same publication, was consistently used in Brazilian literature until 1966, and should be reinstated.
The following 2 subspecies are recognised:
torquata (Gmelin, 1789) - Southern Surinam, east-central Peru and Brazil.
furcifer (Vieillot, 1817) - Northern and eastern Bolivia, southern Brazil, Paraguay, northern and central Argentina and Uruguay.