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Pratincoles
The pratincoles or greywaders are a group of birds which together with the coursers make up the family Glareolidae. They have short legs, very long pointed wings and long forked tails. Description Their most unusual feature for birds classed as waders is that they typically hunt their insect prey on the wing like swallows, although they can also feed on the ground. 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 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. The Australian pratincole, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glareolidae
Glareolidae is a family of birds in the wader suborder Charadrii. It contains two distinct groups, the pratincoles and the coursers. The atypical Egyptian plover (''Pluvianus aegyptius''), traditionally placed in this family, is now known to be only distantly related. The family contains 17 species in 4 genera. Description The feature that defines the family from the rest of the order is the bill, which is arched and has the nostrils at the base. The pratincoles have short legs, long pointed wings and long forked tails. They have a buoyant flight that allows them the unusual (for the order) hunting technique of taking their insect prey on the wing like swallows. The wings also allow for long migrations in some species. The coursers have long legs, which are used to run (giving the group its name). The wings are shorter and have a more sustained flight than that of the pratincoles. Distribution and habitat The pratincoles and coursers have an Old World distribution, occurring ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oriental Pratincole
The oriental pratincole (''Glareola maldivarum''), also known as the grasshopper-bird or swallow-plover, is a wader in the pratincole family, Glareolidae. Etymology The genus name is a diminutive of Latin ''glarea'', "gravel", referring to a typical nesting habitat for pratincoles. The species name ''maldivarum'' refers to the type locality, the ocean near the Maldive Islands; the type specimen, caught alive at sea, survived for a month on flies. Description These birds have short legs, long pointed wings and long forked tails. They have short bills, which is an adaptation to aerial feeding. The back and head are brown, and the wings are brown with black flight feathers. The belly is white. The underwings are chestnut. Very good views are needed to distinguish this species from other pratincoles, such as the very similar collared pratincole, which also has a chestnut underwing, and black-winged pratincole which shares the black upperwing flight feathers and lack of a white trail ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black-winged Pratincole
The black-winged pratincole (''Glareola nordmanni'') is a wader in the pratincole bird family, Glareolidae. The genus name is a diminutive of Latin ''glarea'', "gravel", referring to a typical nesting habitat for pratincoles. The species name commemorates the Finnish-born zoologist and explorer Alexander von Nordmann. Description It is long, with short legs, long pointed wings and a forked tail. It has a short bill, which is an adaptation to aerial feeding. The back and head are brown, and the wings are brown with black flight feathers. The belly is white and the underwings are black. Very good views are needed to distinguish this species from other pratincoles, such as the collared pratincole and the oriental pratincole which may occur in its range. It is marginally larger than the collared pratincole, and is shorter-tailed and longer legged. Although the dark underwing and lack of a white trailing edge to the wing are diagnostic, these features are not always readily seen i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Collared Pratincole
The collared pratincole (''Glareola pratincola''), also known as the common pratincole or red-winged pratincole, is a wader in the pratincole family, Glareolidae. As with other pratincoles, it is native to the Old World. Taxonomy The collared pratincole was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1766 in the twelfth edition of his ''Systema Naturae''. He placed it with the swallows and swifts in the genus ''Hirundo'' and coined the binomial name ''Hirundo pratincola''. The collared pratincole is now placed in the genus ''Glareola'' that was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. The genus name is a diminutive of Latin ''glarea'', "gravel", referring to a typical nesting habitat for pratincoles. The species name ''pratincola'' means an inhabitant of meadows, from Latin ''pratum, prati'', "meadow" and ''incola'', "inhabitant", from ''incolere'', "to inhabit". Two subspecies are recognised: * ''Glareola pratincola pratincola' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Small Pratincole
The small pratincole, little pratincole, or small Indian pratincole (''Glareola lactea''), is a small wader in the pratincole family, Glareolidae. Distribution The small pratincole is a resident breeder in India, Western Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. It breeds from December to March on gravel or sand banks near rivers and lakes, laying 2-4 eggs in a ground scrape. Breeding areas include small areas in northern Karnataka (manvi district raichur.(and along the Hemavathi River) and northern Kerala near Kannur. This species is only 16.5-18.5 cm in length, with a 42–48 cm wingspan. Because of its small size, the small pratincole can be briefly confused in flight with swifts or swallows. Description This bird has short legs, long pointed wings and a short tail. Its short bill is an adaptation to aerial feeding. On the ground, it looks mainly pale grey (hence ''lactea'', milky). The crown of the head is brown. The wings are grey above ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Courser
The coursers are a group of birds which together with the pratincoles make up the family Glareolidae. They have long legs, short wings and long pointed bills which curve downwards. Their most unusual feature for birds classed as waders is that they inhabit deserts and similar arid regions. They have cryptic plumage and crouch down when alarmed to avoid detection by predators. Like the pratincoles, the coursers are found in warmer parts of the Old World. They hunt insects by running. Their 2–3 eggs are laid on the ground. Species in taxonomic order *Cream-colored courser ''Cursorius cursor'' *Somali courser ''Cursorius somalensis'' *Temminck's courser ''Cursorius temminckii '' *Indian courser ''Cursorius coromandelius'' *Burchell's courser ''Cursorius rufus'' *Double-banded courser or two-banded courser, ''Rhinoptilus africanus'' *Three-banded courser or Heuglin's courser, ''Rhinoptilus cinctus'' *Bronze-winged courser or violet-tipped courser, ''Rhinoptilus chalcopterus'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Migration
Bird migration is the regular seasonal movement, often north and south along a flyway, between breeding and wintering grounds. Many species of bird migrate. Migration carries high costs in predation and mortality, including from hunting by humans, and is driven primarily by the availability of food. It occurs mainly in the northern hemisphere, where birds are funneled onto specific routes by natural barriers such as the Mediterranean Sea or the Caribbean Sea. Migration of species such as storks, turtle doves, and swallows was recorded as many as 3,000 years ago by Ancient Greek authors, including Homer and Aristotle, and in the Book of Job. More recently, Johannes Leche began recording dates of arrivals of spring migrants in Finland in 1749, and modern scientific studies have used techniques including bird ringing and satellite tracking to trace migrants. Threats to migratory birds have grown with habitat destruction, especially of stopover and wintering sites, as wel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rock Pratincole
The rock pratincole (''Glareola nuchalis'') is a species of bird in the family Glareolidae. Distribution and habitat There are two subspecies of rock pratincole: *''G. n. liberiae'' (Schlegel, 1881), – ''Rufous-collared pratincole'' – from Sierra Leone to western Cameroon *''G. n. nuchalis'' (Gray, 1849), – ''White-collared pratincole'' – Chad to Ethiopia, south to southern Angola & northeast Namibia to western Zambia & Mozambique Identification The rock pratincole (''Glareola nuchalis'') is a native African wading bird. Mature adults have dark gray or brown plumage with a white line beginning beneath the eye extending to the back of the neck like a collar. Their wings are long and dark with a distinct white patch on the underwing. Their tail is forked and they usually have a white belly. The bill is black with a red base and the legs and eyes are coral red. Both sexes emit a faint whistling contact call and musical purring but can become very noisy when aggressive. ''G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Madagascar Pratincole
The Madagascar pratincole (''Glareola ocularis'') is a species of bird in the family Glareolidae. It is found in Comoros, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Somalia, Tanzania, possibly Mauritius, and possibly Réunion. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland, rivers, freshwater lakes, rocky shores, and intertidal marshes. It is threatened by habitat loss. References External linksBirdLife Species Factsheet. Madagascar pratincole Birds of Madagascar Madagascar pratincole The Madagascar pratincole (''Glareola ocularis'') is a species of bird in the family Glareolidae. It is found in Comoros, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Somalia, Tanzania, possibly Mauritius, and possibly Réunion. Its natural habitat ... Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by Jules Verreaux {{Charadriiformes-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars (including its own descendants, the Romance languages) supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition. Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), six or seven noun cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, and vocative), five declensions, four verb conjuga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilhelm Heinrich Kramer
Wilhem Heinrich Kramer (1724 in Dresden – 13 October 1765) was a German physician and naturalist. Kramer studied in Vienna (Austria) then practiced medicine in Bruck, close to the capital, for at least fourteen years. He published in 1756 a work entitled ''Elenchus Vegetabilium and Animalium per Austriam inferiorem Observatorum'', a flora and fauna of Lower Austria noted especially because it was one of the first works to adopt the binomial nomenclature of Carl von Linné (1707–1778). In this book, Kramer created the name ''pratincola'' for the collared pratincole which was adapted in English in the following work of Thomas Pennant (1726–1798) in 1773. It is probably for him that Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (1723–1788) dedicated ''Psittacus krameri'' (today ''Psittacula krameri'') in 1769. He is also known as an entomologist Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
