Charadrius

Charadrius is a genus of plovers, a group of wading birds. The genus name Charadrius is a Late Latin word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century Vulgate. They are found throughout the world.

Charadrius
Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Class: Aves
Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Charadriidae
Subfamily: Charadriinae
Genus: Charadrius
Linnaeus, 1758
Type species
Charadrius hiaticula (common ringed plover)
Linnaeus, 1758
Species

See text

Synonyms

Aegialites / Aegialitis

Many Charadrius species are characterised by breast bands or collars. These can be (in the adult) complete bands (ringed, semipalmated, little ringed, long-billed), double or triple bands (killdeer, three-banded, Forbes', two-banded, double-banded) or partial collars (Kentish, piping, snowy, Malaysian, Javan, red-capped, puna).

They have relatively short bills and feed mainly on insects, worms or other invertebrates, depending on habitat, which are obtained by a run-and-pause technique, rather than the steady probing of some other wader groups. They hunt by sight, rather than by feel as do longer-billed waders like snipe.

Species of the genus Aegialites (or Aegialitis) are now subsumed within Charadrius.

Taxonomy

The genus Charadrius was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.[1] The name had been used (as Charadrios sive Hiaticula) by the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1603 for the common ringed plover.[2] The word is Late Latin and is mentioned in the Vulgate Bible. It derives from the Ancient Greek χαραδριος/kharadrios, an unidentified plain-coloured nocturnal bird that was found in ravines and river valleys (from kharadra, "ravine").[lower-alpha 1][4] The type species is the common ringed plover.[5] However, it appears that the taxonomy of “Charadrius” may be erroneous, as for example the Kentish plover is more closely related to lapwings than it is to, say, the greater ringed plover. Hence, the either all members of charadriidae, excluding Pluvialis are grouped in a single genus, Charadrius, or the genus is reduced to the Greater ringed plover, Piping plover, Semipalmated plover, and Killdeer. [6]

Species

The genus in its current form contains 33 species, however if the IOC were to revise this taxonomy it may contain only four species.[7]

In December 2020, it was described in a paper that the Kentish plover subspecies O.a.seebohmi may be a new species, the Hanuman plover.

Notes
  1. Leviticus Chapter 11 Verse 19.[3]

References
  1. Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae (Stockholm): Laurentii Salvii. p. 150.
  2. Aldrovandi, Ulisse (1599). Vlyssis Aldrovandi philosophi ac medici Bononiensis historiam naturalem in gymnasio Bononiensi profitentis, Ornithologiae (in Latin). Vol. 1. Bononiae (Bologna, Italy): Franciscum de Franciscis Senensem. pp. 536–537, Lib. 20 Cap. 67.
  3. Anonymous (1592). Biblia sacra vulgatae editionis (in Latin). Rome: Ex. Typographica Apostolica Vaticana. p. 92, Leviticus Chapter 11 Verse 19.
  4. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 99. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  5. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1934). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 245.
  6. "Comprehensive taxon sampling and vetted fossils help clarify the time tree of shorebirds (Aves, Charadriiformes) =24 September 2023". biorxiv.
  7. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (July 2021). "Buttonquail, thick-knees, sheathbills, plovers, oystercatchers, stilts, painted-snipes, jacanas, Plains-wanderer, seedsnipes". IOC World Bird List Version 11.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 17 August 2021.
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