Siberian sand plover | |
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Laem Phak Bia, Ban Laem, Phetchaburi, Thailand | |
Scientific classification ![]() | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Charadriiformes |
Family: | Charadriidae |
Genus: | Anarhynchus |
Species: | A. mongolus |
Binomial name | |
Anarhynchus mongolus (Pallas, 1776) | |
Subspecies | |
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Synonyms | |
Charadrius mongolus (protonym) |
The Siberian sand plover (Anarhynchus mongolus) is a small wader in the plover family of birds. The International Ornithologists' Union split the Tibetan sand plover from the lesser sand plover and changed its vernacular name to Siberian sand plover. [2] The specific mongolus is Latin and refers to Mongolia, which at the time of naming referred to a larger area than the present country. [3]
The Siberian sand plover and the Tibetan sand plover were previously considered to belong to the same species known as the "lesser sand plover", consisting of five races within the species complex. However, a study published in 2022 suggested that the "mongolus" group (currently identified as the Siberian sand plover) within the lesser sand plover is actually the sister group of the greater sand plover. Additionally, the "atrifrons" group (representing the Tibetan sand plover) is the sister group of the monophyletic group formed by the "mongolus" group and the greater sand plover.
Tibetan sand plover (the "atrifrons" group of lesser sand plover) | |||||||
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This means that the lesser sand plover is paraphyletic. Therefore a taxonomic revision was needed. The authors suggested new scientific and common English names for them. [4] The large East Asian forms mongolus and stegmanni are currently identified as the Siberian sand plover, Anarhynchus mongolus; and the Tibetan Plateau form is now known as the Tibetan sand plover, Anarhynchus atrifrons, which includes the three races atrifrons, pamirensis and schaeferi.
IOC accepted the split and renaming of the lesser sand plover in 2023. [2]
This chunky plover is long-legged and long-billed. Breeding males have grey backs and white underparts. The breast, forehead and nape are chestnut, and there is a black eye mask. The female is duller, and winter and juvenile birds lack the chestnut, apart from a hint of rufous on the head. Legs are dark and the bill black.
In all plumages, this species is very similar to the greater sand plover, Charadrius leschenaultii. Separating the species may be straightforward in mixed wintering flocks on an Indian beach, where the difference in size and structure is obvious; it is more difficult to identify a lone vagrant to western Europe, where both species are very rare. The problem is compounded in that the Middle Eastern race of greater sand plover is the most similar to the lesser. The lesser usually has darker legs, a white forehead, and a more even white wing bar than the greater.
It breeds discontinuously across bare coastal plains in north-eastern Siberia, with the Mongolian plover in the eastern part of the range; it has also bred in Alaska. It nests in a bare ground scrape, laying three eggs. This species is strongly migratory, wintering on sandy beaches in east and southeast Asia. [2]
The Siberian sand plover feeds on insects, crustaceans and annelid worms, which are obtained by a run-and-pause technique, rather than the steady probing of some other wader groups. This species takes fewer steps and shorter pauses than the greater sand plover when feeding.
The flight call is a hard trill.
The Siberian sand plover is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.
Size is one of the factors distinguishing a Siberian sand plover from a greater sand plover, with the Siberian being slightly smaller. However, it is not easy to rely on size alone especially when seen individually. The length of the bill is another distinguishing feature, with the Siberian generally having a shorter bill compared to a greater. The colour of the legs in a Siberian sand plover is generally darker, ranging from black to grey, while in a greater sand plover it is much paler, ranging from grey to yellowish.[ needs update ]
The common ringed plover or ringed plover is a small plover that breeds across much of northern Eurasia, as well as Greenland. 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 ravines and river valleys. The specific hiaticula is Latin and has a similar meaning to the Greek term, coming from hiatus, "cleft" and -cola, "dweller".
The snowy plover is a small shorebird found in the Americas. It is a member of the bird family Charadriidae, which includes the plovers, dotterels, and lapwings. The snowy plover was originally described by John Cassin in 1858, but was classified as a subspecies of the Kentish plover in 1922. Since 2011, the snowy plover has been recognized as a distinct species based on genetic and anatomical differences from the Kentish plover. Two or three subspecies are recognized, distributed along the Pacific coast of North America, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, in several inland areas of the US and Mexico, along the Gulf Coast, and on Caribbean islands. The coastal populations consist of both residential and migratory birds, whereas the inland populations are mostly migratory. It is one of the best studied endemic shorebirds of the Americas, and one of the rarest.
The greater sand plover is a small wader in the plover family of birds. The spelling is commonly given as "greater sandplover" or "greater sand-plover", but the official British Ornithologists' Union spelling is "Greater Sand Plover". The specific leschenaultii commemorates the French botanist Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour.
The Caspian plover is a wader in the plover family of birds. The specific asiaticus is Latin and means "Asian", although in binomials it usually means the type locality was India.
Wilson's plover is a small bird of the family Charadriidae.
Kittlitz's plover is a small shorebird in the family Charadriidae that breeds near coastal and inland saltmarshes, sandy or muddy riverbanks or alkaline grasslands with short vegetation. It is native to much of Sub-Saharan Africa, the Nile Delta and Madagascar. It is thought to be mainly polygamous and has monomorphic plumage.
The collared plover is a small shorebird in the plover family, Charadriidae. It lives along coasts and riverbanks of the tropical to temperate Americas, from central Mexico south to Chile and Argentina.
Ladakh is the home to endemic Himalayan wildlife, such as the bharal, yak, Himalayan brown bear, Himalayan wolf and the iconic snow leopard. Hemis National Park, Changthang Cold Desert Wildlife Sanctuary, and Karakorum Wildlife Sanctuary are protected wildlife areas of Ladakh. The Mountain Institute, the Ladakh Ecological Development Group and the Snow Leopard Conservancy work on ecotourism in rural Ladakh. For such an elevated, arid area, Ladakh has great diversity of birds — 318 species have been recorded. Many of these birds reside at or seasonally breed in high-altitude wetlands, such as Tso Moriri, or near rivers and water sources.
The terrestrial fauna of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands is unsurprisingly depauperate, because of the small land area of the islands, their lack of diverse habitats, and their isolation from large land-masses. However, the fauna dependent on marine resources is much richer.
Anarhynchus is a genus of plovers consisting of 24 species.
The Tibetan sand plover is a small wader in the plover family of birds, breeds in Pamir Mountains, Tian Shan, Tibetan Plateau and south Mongolia, winters in east and south Africa, south, east and southeast Asia.
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: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of March 2024 (link)