Charadriidae
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The bird family Charadriidae includes the
plover Plovers ( , ) are members of a widely distributed group of wader, wading birds of subfamily Charadriinae. The term "plover" applies to all the members of the subfamily, though only about half of them include it in their name. Species lis ...
s, dotterels, and lapwings. The family contains 69
species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
that are divided into 10
genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...
.


Taxonomy

The
family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
Charadriidae was introduced (as Charadriadæ) by the English zoologist
William Elford Leach William Elford Leach (2 February 1791 – 25 August 1836) was an English zoologist and marine biologist. Life and work Elford Leach was born at Hoe Gate, Plymouth, the son of an attorney. At the age of twelve he began a medical apprenticesh ...
in a guide to the contents of the
British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
published in 1820. Most members of the family are known as ''plovers'', ''lapwings'' or ''dotterels''. These were rather vague terms which were not applied with any great consistency in the past. In general, larger, broader-winged species have often been called ''lapwings'', and the smaller, narrower-winged species ''plovers'' or ''dotterels''. Until recently, it was thought these formed two major clear taxonomic sub-groups, with lapwings belong to the subfamily Vanellinae, and all but one of the plovers and dotterels to Charadriinae; the last one placed in a small third subfamily Pluvianellinae containing only the Magellanic plover. Modern genetic evidence has however shown that this arrangement was polyphyletic, with in particular, many species traditionally placed in the plover genus '' Charadrius'' proving more closely related to the lapwings than they were to the
type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, 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 spe ...
of that genus, '' Charadrius hiaticula''; as a result, those species have now been split out into the genus '' Anarhynchus'' (syn. ''Ochthodromus''). The third former 'subfamily' proved so completely unrelated to the other plovers that it has been removed from the Charadriidae altogether and given its own monotypic family Pluvianellidae, its closest relatives being the strikingly different sheathbills. The trend in recent years has been to rationalise the common names of the Charadriidae. For example, the large and very common Australian bird traditionally known as the 'spur-winged plover', is now the masked lapwing to avoid conflict with another bird with the same name; and the former 'sociable plover' is now the sociable lapwing.


Description

They are small to medium-sized
bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...
s with compact bodies, short, thick necks and long, usually pointed, wings, but most species of lapwing have broader, more rounded wings. Their bill are usually straight (except for the wrybill) and short, their toes are short, hind toe can be reduced or absent, depending on species. Most Charadriidae also have relatively short tails, with the exception of the killdeer. In most genera, the sexes are similar, very little sexual dimorphism occurs between sexes. They range in size from the collared plover, at 26 grams and , to the masked lapwing, at and .


Distribution and habitat

They are distributed through open country worldwide, mostly in habitats near water, although there are some exceptions: the inland dotterel, for example, prefers stony ground in the deserts of central and western Australia, and the killdeer is often found in grasslands in North America.


Behaviour and ecology

They hunt by sight, rather than by feel as longer-billed waders like snipe do. Foods eaten include aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates such as insects, worms,
molluscs Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...
and
crustaceans Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of Arthropod, arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquat ...
depending on habitat, and are usually obtained by a run-and-pause technique, rather than the steady probing of some other wader groups. They also feed on plant material.


Breeding

The vast majority of Charadriidae have a socially monogamous mating system. Some, such as Northern lapwings, are polygynous, others, such as mountain plovers have a rapid multiple-clutch system that can be accompanied by sequential polyandry. In Eurasian dotterels, females compete for males and males provide all
parental care Parental care is a behavioural and evolutionary strategy adopted by some animals, involving a parental investment being made to the evolutionary fitness of offspring. Patterns of parental care are widespread and highly diverse across the animal k ...
. While breeding, they defend their territories with highly visible aerial displays. Charadridae lay two to four eggs into the nest, which is usually a shallow scrape in the open ground, and incubate the clutch for 21–30 days. In species where both parents incubate the eggs, females and males vary in the way they share their incubation duties, both within and between species. In some pairs, parents exchange on the nest in the morning and in the evening so that their incubation rhythm follows 24-hour day, in others females and males exchange up to 20 times a day. Most Charadriidae are protective over their eggs and offspring. The parents protect their young by uttering an alarm call, performing distraction display and they may even attack the predator or intruder. The chicks are precocial; their parents do not feed them.


References


External links


Charadriidae videos
on the Internet Bird Collection
Incubating Charadriidae videos
in Incubating shorebirds {{Authority control Bird families