'' Charadrius '' is a genus of

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 ...

s, a group of wading

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s. 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 ...

. They are found throughout the world. 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 A snipe is any of about 26 wading bird species in three genera in the family Scolopacidae. They are characterized by a very long, slender bill, eyes placed high on the head, and cryptic/ camouflaging plumage. The '' Gallinago'' snipes have ...

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

Taxonomy

The

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

''Charadrius'' was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial ...

''. 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

and is mentioned in the Vulgate Bible. It derives from the

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 pe ...

χαραδριος''/kharadrios'', an unidentified plain-coloured nocturnal bird that was found in ravines and river valleys (from ''kharadra'', "ravine"). The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specim ...

is the common ringed plover.

Species

The genus contains 32 species. * New Zealand dotterel, red-breasted plover or New Zealand plover, ''Charadrius obscurus'' * Common ringed plover, ''Charadrius hiaticula'' * Semipalmated plover, ''Charadrius semipalmatus'' * Long-billed plover, ''Charadrius placidus'' *

Little ringed plover The little ringed plover (''Charadrius dubius'') is a small plover. The genus name ''Charadrius'' is a Late Latin word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century Vulgate. It derives from Ancient Greek ''kharadrios'' a bird found in ri ...

, ''Charadrius dubius'' * Wilson's plover, ''Charadrius wilsonia'' * Killdeer, ''Charadrius vociferus'' *

Piping plover The piping plover (''Charadrius melodus'') is a small sand-colored, sparrow-sized wader, shorebird that nests and feeds along coastal sand and gravel beaches in North America. The adult has yellow-orange-red legs, a black band across the forehead ...

, ''Charadrius melodus'' *

Madagascar plover The Madagascar plover (''Charadrius thoracicus''), also known as the black-banded plover, is a small (37 g) monogamous shorebird in the family Charadriidae, native to western Madagascar. It inhabits shores of lagoons, coastal grasslands, and bree ...

, ''Charadrius thoracicus'' * Kittlitz's plover, ''Charadrius pecuarius'' * Saint Helena plover, ''Charadrius sanctaehelenae'' * Three-banded plover, ''Charadrius tricollaris'' * Forbes's plover, ''Charadrius forbesi'' * Kentish plover, ''Charadrius alexandrinus'' * White-faced plover, ''Charadrius dealbatus'' * Snowy plover, ''Charadrius nivosus'' * Javan plover, ''Charadrius javanicus'' *

White-fronted plover The white-fronted plover or white-fronted sandplover (''Charadrius marginatus'') is a small (45-50 g) shorebird of the family Charadriidae that inhabits sandy beaches, dunes, mudflats and the shores of rivers and lakes in sub-saharan Africa and ...

, ''Charadrius marginatus'' * Red-capped plover, ''Charadrius ruficapillus'' *

Malaysian plover The Malaysian plover (''Charadrius peronii'') is a small (c. 35–42 g) wader that nests on beaches and salt flats in Southeast Asia. Description The Malaysian plover is 15 cm (5.9 in) in length. The male can be recognized by a thin b ...

, ''Charadrius peronii'' *

Chestnut-banded plover The chestnut-banded plover (''Charadrius pallidus'') is a species of bird in the family Charadriidae. This species has a large range, being distributed across Southern Africa. However, it occupies a rather small area. Identification It grows ab ...

, ''Charadrius pallidus'' * Collared plover, ''Charadrius collaris'' *

Puna plover The puna plover (''Charadrius alticola'') is a species of bird in subfamily Charadriinae of family Charadriidae. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru.HBW and BirdLife International (2022) Handbook of the Birds of the World and B ...

, ''Charadrius alticola'' * Double-banded plover or banded dotterel (New Zealand), ''Charadrius bicinctus'' * Two-banded plover, ''Charadrius falklandicus'' *

Lesser sand plover The lesser sand plover (''Charadrius mongolus'') is a small wader in the plover family of birds. The spelling is commonly given as lesser sand-plover, but the official British Ornithologists' Union spelling is "lesser sand plover". The genus ...

, ''Charadrius mongolus'' * Greater sand plover, ''Charadrius leschenaultii'' *

Caspian plover The Caspian plover (''Charadrius asiaticus'') is a wader in the plover family of birds. The genus name ''Charadrius'' is a Late Latin word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century Vulgate. It derives from Ancient Greek ''kharadrios ...

, ''Charadrius asiaticus'' *

Oriental plover The oriental plover (''Charadrius veredus''), also known as the oriental dotterel, is a medium-sized plover closely related to the Caspian plover. It breeds in parts of Mongolia and China, migrating southwards each year to spend its non-breeding ...

, ''Charadrius veredus'' *

Eurasian dotterel The Eurasian dotterel (''Charadrius morinellus''), also known in Europe as just dotterel, is a small wader in the plover family of birds. The dotterel is a brown and black streaked bird with a broad white eye-stripe and an orange-red chest ba ...

, ''Charadrius morinellus'' *

Rufous-chested plover The rufous-chested plover (''Charadrius modestus'') or rufous-chested dotterel, is a species of bird in subfamily Charadriinae of family Charadriidae.HBW and BirdLife International (2022) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife Interna ...

, ''Charadrius modestus'' * Mountain plover, ''Charadrius montanus'' In December 2020, it was described in a paper that the Kentish plover subspecies ''C.a.seebohmi'' may be a new species, the Hanuman plover.

Gallery

File:Charadrius alexandrinus 2.jpg, Kentish plover (''C. alexandrinus'') File:Semipalmatedplover-santafeisland.jpg, Semipalmated plover (''C. semipalmatus'') Eggs of Three-banded Plover (Charadrius tricollaris) right in the middle of the S59 Road (11926451373).jpg, Three-banded plover (''C. tricollaris'') eggs on open ground File:Little ringed plover - chick.jpg,

(''C. dubius'') chick

Notes

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q736322 Bird genera