The Christmas sandpiper or Kiritimati sandpiper (''Prosobonia cancellata'') was a small

shorebird 245px, A flock of Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflats in order to foraging, ...

. It became extinct some time in the first half of the 19th century. It was

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

Christmas Island Christmas Island, officially the Territory of Christmas Island, is an Australian external territory comprising the island of the same name. It is located in the Indian Ocean, around south of Java and Sumatra and around north-west of the ...

(now also Kiritimati), since 1919 part of

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

. It is known solely from a single contemporaneous illustration (by

William Wade Ellis William Wade Ellis (1751 – 1785) was an artist, a naturalist, and a surgeon's mate on Captain James Cook's voyages. His middle name was wrongly identified as Webb in some sources. He is known largely from the paintings of natural history subject ...

), and a description by

William Anderson William Anderson may refer to: Arts and entertainment * William Anderson (artist) (1757–1837), painter of marine and historical paintings * William Anderson (theatre) (1868–1940), Australian stage entrepreneur * William Anderson (1911–1986) ...

, both made during the third circumnavigation voyage commanded by Captain James Cook, which visited the atoll of Christmas Island between 24 December 1777 and 2 January 1778.

Taxonomy

The Christmas sandpiper was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of

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, ...

's ''

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 nom ...

''. He placed it with the sandpipers in 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 n ...

Tringa ''Tringa'' is a genus of waders, containing the shanks and tattlers. The genus name ''Tringa'' is the New Latin name given to the green sandpiper by the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1599. They are mainly freshwater birds, often with ...

'' and coined the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''Tringa cancellata''. Gmelin based his description on the "Barred phalarope" from

that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his ''A General Synopsis of Birds ''. Latham's specimen had been supplied by the naturalist Joseph Banks. Banks had accompanied James Cook on his first voyage to the south Pacific but had also received specimens from Cook's subsequent voyages. The Christmas sandpiper is now placed in the genus '' Prosobonia'' that was introduced by

Charles Lucien Bonaparte Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, 2nd Prince of Canino and Musignano (24 May 1803 – 29 July 1857), was a French naturalist and ornithologist. Lucien and his wife had twelve children, including Cardinal Lucien Bonaparte. Life and career ...

in 1850. The specific epithet ''cancellata'' is from

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 ...

''canellatus'' meaning "trellis-like" or "lattice-like". Prosobonia cancellata cancellata.jpg, William Ellis' image

References

Prosobonia Sandpipers Birds described in 1789 Taxa named by Johann Friedrich Gmelin Extinct birds of Oceania {{Charadriiformes-stub