Stilt

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Stilt
Black-winged Stilt (Himantopus himantopus) (44730874990).jpg
Adult black-winged stilt in Tanzania
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Recurvirostridae
Genus: Himantopus
Brisson, 1760
Type species
Charadrius himantopus
Linnaeus, 1758
Genera

Stilt is a common name for several species of birds in the family Recurvirostridae, which also includes those known as avocets. They are found in brackish or saline wetlands in warm or hot climates.

They have extremely long legs, hence the group name, and long thin bills. Stilts typically feed on aquatic insects and other small creatures and nest on the ground surface in loose colonies.

Most sources recognize 6 species in 2 genera, although the white-backed and Hawaiian stilts are occasionally considered subspecies of the black-necked stilt.

The genus Charadrius was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760 with the black-winged stilt (Himantopus himantopus) as the type species. [1] [2] The generic name Himantopus comes from the Ancient Greek meaning "strap-leg". [3]

Species

The genus Himantopus contains five species: [4]

The genus Cladorhynchus is monotypic and contains a single species: [4]

A fossil stilt has been described by Bickart, 1990, as Himantopus olsoni, based on remains recovered in the Late Miocene Big Sandy Formation of Mohave County, Arizona, United States. [5]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pied stilt</span> Species of bird

The pied stilt, also known as the white-headed stilt, is a shorebird in the family Recurvirostridae. It is widely distributed with a large total population size and apparently stable population trend, occurring in Malaysia, Japan, the Philippines, Brunei, Christmas Island, Indonesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. It is sometimes considered a subspecies of the black-winged stilt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black-necked stilt</span> Species of bird

The black-necked stilt is a locally abundant shorebird of American wetlands and coastlines. It is found from the coastal areas of California through much of the interior western United States and along the Gulf of Mexico as far east as Florida, then south through Central America and the Caribbean to Brazil, Peru and the Galápagos Islands, with an isolated population, the Hawaiian stilt, in Hawaii. The northernmost populations, particularly those from inland, are migratory, wintering from the extreme south of the United States to southern Mexico, rarely as far south as Costa Rica; on the Baja California peninsula it is only found regularly in winter. Some authorities, including the IUCN, treat it as a synonym of Himantopus himantopus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hawaiian stilt</span> Subspecies of bird

The Hawaiian stilt is an endangered Hawaiian subspecies of the black-necked stilt species. It is a long-legged, slender shorebird with a long, thin beak. Other common names include the Hawaiian black-necked stilt, the aeʻo, the kukuluaeʻo, or it may be referred to as the Hawaiian subspecies of the black-necked stilt.

References

  1. Brisson, Mathurin Jacques (1760). Ornithologie, ou, Méthode Contenant la Division des Oiseaux en Ordres, Sections, Genres, Especes & leurs Variétés (in French and Latin). Paris: Jean-Baptiste Bauche. Vol. 1, p. 46, Vol. 5, p. 33.
  2. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1934). Check-list of Birds of the World. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 289.
  3. Jobling, James (2010). Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names . London: Helm. p.  191. ISBN   978-1-4081-2501-4.
  4. 1 2 Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2019). "Buttonquail, plovers, seedsnipe, sandpipers". World Bird List Version 9.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
  5. Bickart, K. J. (1990). "Part I: The Birds of the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene Big Sandy Formation, Mohave County, Arizona". Ornithological Monographs (44): 1–72. doi:10.2307/40166673. JSTOR   40166673.