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Charadrius

Genus of birds

Summary

Genus of birds

  • Elseyornis Mathews, 1914

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.

Many Charadrius species are characterised by their plumage pattern, being breast bands or collars. In the adult, the patterns are single complete bands (ringed, semipalmated, little ringed, long-billed), or double or triple bands (killdeer, three-banded, Forbes'). They have relatively short bills and feed mainly on insects, worms, or other invertebrates, depending on habitat. Prey is 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 (tactile sense) as do longer-billed waders like snipe or curlews.

Taxonomy

The genus Charadrius was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. The name had been used (as Charadrios sive Hiaticula) by the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1603 for the common ringed plover. 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"). The type species is the common ringed plover. However, it once appeared that the taxonomy of “Charadrius” was erroneous, as for example the Kentish plover is more closely related to lapwings than it is to, say, the greater ringed plover. Hence, either all members of Charadriidae, excluding Pluvialis are grouped in a single genus, Charadrius, or the genus is reduced to the common ringed plover, piping plover, semipalmated plover, and killdeer. The latter option was chosen.

Based on a molecular phylogenetic study by Natalie Dos Remedios and collaborators that was published in 2015 and another study by David Cerný and Rossy Natale published in 2022, the generic boundaries in the family Charadriidae have been changed to create monophyletic genera. The genetic results show that Charadrius is sister to the genus Thinornis and that the two genera shared a common ancestor around 18 million years ago. Here, they are treated as separate genera rather than an alternative treatment in which Charadrius is expanded to include the species in Thinornis.

Species

The genus now contains four species:

ImageScientific nameCommon nameDistribution
[[File:Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus).jpg125px]]Charadrius vociferusKilldeerNorth America ;
winters to Central and northwestern South America
[[File:Charadrius hiaticula He1.jpg125px]]Charadrius hiaticulaCommon ringed ploverarctic and northern Europe ;
winters to Africa and southern Asia
[[File:Semipalmated Plover Breeding Plumagein Churchill Canada.jpg125px]]Charadrius semipalmatusSemipalmated ploverNorth America
[[File:Charadrius melodus FWS 7519.jpg125px]]Charadrius melodusPiping plovercentral/eastern North America

Notes

References

References

  1. Linnaeus, Carl. (1758). "Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis". Laurentii Salvii.
  2. Aldrovandi, Ulisse. (1599). "Vlyssis Aldrovandi philosophi ac medici Bononiensis historiam naturalem in gymnasio Bononiensi profitentis, Ornithologiae". Franciscum de Franciscis Senensem.
  3. Anonymous. (1592). "Biblia sacra vulgatae editionis". Ex. Typographica Apostolica Vaticana.
  4. Jobling, James A.. (2010). "The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names". Christopher Helm.
  5. (1934). "Check-List of Birds of the World". Harvard University Press.
  6. (2022). "Comprehensive taxon sampling and vetted fossils help clarify the time tree of shorebirds (Aves, Charadriiformes)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.
  7. (2015). "North or south? Phylogenetic and biogeographic origins of a globally distributed avian clade". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.
  8. (2022). "Comprehensive taxon sampling and vetted fossils help clarify the time tree of shorebirds (Aves, Charadriiformes)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.
  9. AviList Core Team. (2025). "AviList: The Global Avian Checklist, v2025".
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