The little ringed plover (''Charadrius dubius'') is a small

plover Plovers ( , ) are a widely distributed group of wading birds belonging to the subfamily Charadriinae. Description There are about 66 species in the subfamily, most of them called "plover" or "dotterel". The closely related lapwing subf ...

. The genus name ''Charadrius'' is a

Late Latin Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in t ...

word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century

Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...

. It derives from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''kharadrios'' a bird found in river valleys (''kharadra'', "ravine"). The specific ''dubius'' is

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for doubtful, since

Sonnerat Pierre Sonnerat (18 August 1748 – 31 March 1814) was a French naturalist, colonial administrator, writer and explorer. He described numerous species of plants and animals on his travels and is honoured in the genus ''Sonneratia'' and in other ...

, writing in 1776, thought this bird might be just a variant of

common ringed plover The common ringed plover or ringed plover (''Charadrius hiaticula'') is a small plover that breeds in Arctic Eurasia. The genus name ''Charadrius'' is a Late Latin word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century Vulgate. It derives from ...

Description

Adult little ringed plovers have a grey-brown back and wings, a white belly and a white breast with one black neckband. They have a brown cap, a white forehead, a black mask around the eyes with white above and a short dark bill. The legs are flesh-coloured and the toes are all webbed. This species differs from the larger ringed plover in leg colour, the head pattern, and the presence of a clear yellow eye-ring.

Gallery

Little Ringedplover by Sreedev Puthur.jpg, Little Ringed Plover Little ringed plover3.jpg, Little ringed plover in

Kannur Kannur (), formerly known in English as Cannanore, is a city and a municipal corporation in the state of Kerala, India. It is the administrative headquarters of the Kannur district and situated north of the major port city and commercial hu ...

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

Little ringed plover - chick.jpg, Little ringed plover chick Juvenile little ringed plover.jpg, A juvenile at Pulicat Lake, India Flussregenpfeifer Charadrius dubius.jpg, Mating, the male bird hits the cloaca of the female bird Charadrius dubius curonicus MHNT.jpg, Egg of '' Charadrius dubius'', MHNT Charadrius dubius curonicus MHNT.ZOO.2010.11.109.10.jpg, Eggs of ''Charadrius dubius curonicus'', MHNT File:Little Ringed Plover AMSM6848 LRPL.jpg, Adult in breeding plumage at

Khijadiya Bird Sanctuary Khijadiya Bird Sanctuary is a bird sanctuary located in Jamnagar district of Gujarat, India. About 300 species of migratory birds have been recorded here. In 2022, on World Wetlands Day (2 February) it was declared as a Ramsar site. Sanctuary Th ...

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Habitats and range

Their breeding habitat is open gravel areas near freshwater, including gravel pits, islands and river edges across the Palearctic including northwestern

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. They nest on the ground on stones with little or no plant growth. Both males and females take turns incubating the eggs. They are migratory and winter in

. These birds forage for food on muddy areas, usually by sight. They eat insects and worms.

Subspecies

Three subspecies recognized. *''C. d. curonicus'' J. F. Gmelin, 1789 - from Eurasia, Russian Fareast, Japan, Korea, China to North Africa. Winter spends in Sahara, Sri Lanka, to Indonesia and China. *''C. d. jerdoni'' (Legge, 1880) - from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan to South East Asia. *''C. d. dubius'' Scopoli, 1786 - from the Philippines, New Guinea to Bismarck Archipelago.

Conservation

The little ringed plover is one of the species to which the ''Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds'' (

AEWA The Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds, or African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) is an independent international treaty developed under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme's Conventio ...

) applies.

References

External links

Little ringed plover
Images and documentation
Sexing and ageing (PDF; 5.4 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze
* * * * * * * * {{Authority control little ringed plover Birds of Eurasia Birds of Africa little ringed plover Taxa named by Giovanni Antonio Scopoli