The semipalmated plover (''Charadrius semipalmatus'') is a small
plover
Plovers ( , ) are a widely distributed group of wading birds belonging to the subfamily Charadriinae.
Description
There are about 66 species in the subfamily, most of them called "plover" or "dotterel". The closely related lapwing subf ...
. ''Charadrius'' is a
Late Latin
Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in t ...
word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century
Vulgate
The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible.
The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...
. It derives from
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
''kharadrios'' a bird found in ravines and river valleys (''kharadra'', "ravine"). The specific '' semipalmatus '' is
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 ...
and comes from ''semi'', "half" and ''palma'', "palm". Like the English name, this refers to its only partially webbed feet.
Description
This species weighs and measures in length and across the wings.
[''CRC Handbook of Avian Body Masses'' by John B. Dunning Jr. (Editor). CRC Press (1992), .] Adults have a grey-brown back and wings, a white belly, and a white breast with one black neckband. They have a brown cap, a white forehead, a black mask around the eyes and a short orange and black bill.
Habitat
Their breeding habitat is open ground on beaches or flats across northern
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
and
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
. They nest on the ground in an open area with little or no plant growth.
They are
migratory and winter in coastal areas of the southern
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, the
Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
and much of
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
. They are extremely rare vagrants to western Europe, and have been found in
Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla G ...
and the
Isles of Scilly
The Isles of Scilly (; kw, Syllan, ', or ) is an archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, is the most southerly point in Britain, being over further south than the most southerly point of the ...
. Their true status may be obscured by the difficulty in identifying them from the very similar
ringed plover
The common ringed plover or ringed plover (''Charadrius hiaticula'') is a small plover that breeds in Arctic Eurasia. The genus name ''Charadrius'' is a Late Latin word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century Vulgate. It derives from ...
of Eurasia, of which it was formerly considered a
subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
.
Behavior
Semipalmated plovers forage for food on beaches, tidal flats and fields, usually by sight. They eat insects (such as the larvae of
long-legged and beach flies, larvae of
soldier flies and
shore flies,
mosquito
Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''culex'' meaning " gnat"). The word "mosquito" (formed by ''mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish for "li ...
es,
grasshopper
Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are among what is possibly the most ancient living group of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago.
Grasshopp ...
s and ''
Ochtebius
''Ochthebius'' is a genus of minute moss beetles in the family Hydraenidae. There are at least 460 described species in ''Ochthebius''.
See also
* List of Ochthebius species
This is a list of 452 species in ''Ochthebius'', a genus of minute ...
'' beetles), spiders, crustaceans (such as
isopod
Isopoda is an order of crustaceans that includes woodlice and their relatives. Isopods live in the sea, in fresh water, or on land. All have rigid, segmented exoskeletons, two pairs of antennae, seven pairs of jointed limbs on the thorax, an ...
s,
decapods and
copepod
Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat (ecology), habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthos, benthic (living on the ocean floor) ...
s) and worms (such as
polychaete
Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class (biology), class of generally marine invertebrate, marine annelid worms, common name, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that ...
s). They also consume small molluscs including
bivalve
Bivalvia (), in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of marine and freshwater molluscs that have laterally compressed bodies enclosed by a shell consisting of two hinged parts. As a group, bival ...
s and
gastropod
The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda ().
This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. T ...
s, including snails such as
coffee bean snails and ''
Odostomia laevigata
''Odostomia laevigata'', common name the ovoid odostome, is a species of sea snail, a marine (ocean), marine gastropod mollusc in the family (biology), family Pyramidellidae, the pyrams and their allies.Rosenberg, G. (2011). ''Odostomia laevigat ...
''. These opportunistic feeders also feed on berries or seeds from grasslands or cultivated fields. This bird resembles the
killdeer
The killdeer (''Charadrius vociferus'') is a large plover found in the Americas. It was described and given its current scientific name in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his ''Systema Naturae''. Three subspecies are described. Th ...
but is much smaller and has only one band. Since the semipalmated plover nests on the ground, it uses a "broken-wing" display to lure intruders away from the nest, in a display similar to the related
killdeer
The killdeer (''Charadrius vociferus'') is a large plover found in the Americas. It was described and given its current scientific name in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his ''Systema Naturae''. Three subspecies are described. Th ...
.
[University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Charadrius_semipalmatus/]
Gallery
File:Semipalmatedplover-santafeisland.jpg, Galápagos Islands
File:Semipalmated Plover, broken wing display.jpg, "Broken wing" display
Image:Charadrius-semipalmatus-002.jpg, Juvenile
File:Charadrius semipalmatus (Audubon).jpg, Illustration (John James Audubon
John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin; April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was an American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictoria ...
)
References
External links
Semipalmated plover species account- Cornell Lab of Ornithology
- USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter
Semipalmated plover Environment Canada
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{{Taxonbar, from=Q468009
semipalmated plover
The semipalmated plover (''Charadrius semipalmatus'') is a small plover. ''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 ri ...
Shorebirds
Native birds of Alaska
Birds of Canada
semipalmated plover
The semipalmated plover (''Charadrius semipalmatus'') is a small plover. ''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 ri ...
Taxa named by Charles Lucien Bonaparte