| Pratincoles | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Small pratincole (Glareola lactea) from Mangaon, Maharashtra, India | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Charadriiformes |
| Family: | Glareolidae |
| Subfamily: | Glareolinae |
| Genera | |
The pratincoles are a subfamily (Glareolinae) of birds which together with the coursers make up the family Glareolidae. They have short legs, very long pointed wings, and in several, long forked tails.
Although traditionally thought to be waders, particularly closely related to plovers, [1] genetic studies now classify the coursers and pratincoles in the suborder Lari, more closely related to gulls and terns, and closest of all to the crab-plover. [2]
Their most unusual feature is that they typically hunt their insect prey on the wing like swallows, although they will also feed on the ground, running to pick up insects. Their short bills are an adaptation to aerial feeding.
Their flight is fast and graceful like a swallow or a tern, with many twists and turns to pursue their prey. They are most active at dawn and dusk, resting in the warmest part of the day.
Like the coursers, the pratincoles are found in warmer parts of the Old World, from southern Europe and Africa east through Asia to Australia. Species breeding in warm temperate regions are long-distance migrants.
Their two to four eggs are laid on the ground in a bare scrape.
The downy pratincole chicks are able to run as soon as they are hatched. [3]
The Australian pratincole, usually treated in a separate genus Stiltia, is longer-legged and more terrestrial than the other pratincoles, [4] [5] but may be better included in the genus Glareola, as its exclusion leaves Glareola paraphyletic with G. nuchalis being basal in the group. [2]
The name "pratincole" comes from the term pratincola coined by German naturalist Wilhelm Heinrich Kramer from the Latin words prātum meadow and incola resident. [6]