Thinornis

Thinornis
Shore plover (Thinornis novaeseelandiae)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Charadriiformes
Family:	Charadriidae
Subfamily:	Charadriinae
Genus:	Thinornis G.R. Gray, 1845
Type species
Charadrius novaeseelandiae (shore plover) Gmelin, JF, 1789
Species
See text

Thinornis is a genus of plovers in the family Charadriidae.

Taxonomy

The genus Thinornis was introduced in 1844 by the English zoologist George Robert Gray to accommodate a single species, Thinornis rossii G.R. Gray, which is now considered a junior synonym of Charadrius novaeseelandiae J.F. Gmelin, the shore plover. ^{[1] [2]} The genus name combines the Ancient Greek this meaning "beach" or "sand" with ornis meaning "bird". ^[3] Genetic studies have shown that Thinornis is sister to the genus Charadrius . ^{[4] [5]}

The genus contains seven species: ^[6]

Image	Common name	Scientific name	Distribution
	Hooded plover	Thinornis cucullatus	southern Australia, including Tasmania
	Shore plover	Thinornis novaeseelandiae	Chatham Islands
	Black-fronted dotterel	Thinornis melanops	Australia, western Tasmania and New Zealand
	Forbes's plover	Thinornis forbesi	grassland and rocky hillsides of western and central Africa
	Three-banded plover	Thinornis tricollaris	southern Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa
	Long-billed plover	Thinornis placidus	Manchuria and East Asia
	Little ringed plover	Thinornis dubius	Eurasia

An additional species, the Auckland Islands shore plover (Thinornis rossii), known from just one specimen collected in 1840, is now generally considered to be a juvenile shore plover whose location was incorrectly recorded. ^[7]

References

1. Gray, George Robert (1844). "Birds". In Richardson, John; Gray, John Edward (eds.). The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Erebus and Terror, Under the Command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross, During the Years 1839-43. Vol. 1: Mammals and Birds. London: E. W. Janson. pp. 1–20 [11–12].
2. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1934). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 257.
3. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 384. ISBN   978-1-4081-2501-4.
4. Dos Remedios, N.; Lee, P.L.M.; Burke, T.; Székely, T.; Küpper, C. (2015). "North or south? Phylogenetic and biogeographic origins of a globally distributed avian clade". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 89: 151–159. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2015.04.010.
5. Černý, David; Natale, Rossy (2022). "Comprehensive taxon sampling and vetted fossils help clarify the time tree of shorebirds (Aves, Charadriiformes)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 177 107620. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2022.107620.
6. AviList Core Team (2025). "AviList: The Global Avian Checklist, v2025". doi: 10.2173/avilist.v2025 . Retrieved 7 November 2025.
7. Gill, Brian J.; Bell, B. D.; Chambers, G. K.; Medway, D. G.; Palma, R. L.; Scofield, R. P.; Tennyson, A. J. D.; Worthy, T. H. (2010). Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand (4th ed.). Wellington, N.Z.: Te Papa Press. ISBN   978-1-877385-59-9.

Further reading

• Les Christidis, Walter Boles: Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds. CSIRO Publishing. 2008. ISBN   978-0-643-06511-6