Charadrius
Genus of birds
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.
01Taxonomy
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:
| Image | Scientific name | Common name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charadrius vociferus | Killdeer | North America ; winters to Central and northwestern South America | |
| Charadrius hiaticula | Common ringed plover | arctic and northern Europe ; winters to Africa and southern Asia | |
| Charadrius semipalmatus | Semipalmated plover | North America | |
| Charadrius melodus | Piping plover | central/eastern North America |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Charadrius”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Killdeer - Charadrius vociferus, Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, Cambridge, Maryland - 7033351019.jpg by Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0
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