Genus of birds
The three dowitchers are medium-sized long-billed wading birds in the genus Limnodromus . The English name "dowitcher" is from Iroquois , recorded in English by the 1830s.[ 2]
They resemble godwits in body and bill shape, and the reddish underparts in summer, but are much shorter legged, more like snipes , to which they are more closely related.[ 3] All three are strongly migratory .
The two North American species are difficult to separate in most plumages, and were considered a single species for many years. The Asian bird is rare and not well known.
Taxonomy
The genus Limnodromus was introduced in 1833 by the German naturalist Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied to accommodate a single species, the short-billed dowitcher .[ 4] [ 5] The name combines the Ancient Greek limnē meaning "marsh" with -dromos meaning "-racer" or "-runner".[ 6]
The dowitcher species are:[ 7]
References
^ "Alcidae" . aviansystematics.org . The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 2023-07-26 .
^ "Dowitcher" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press . (Subscription or participating institution membership required.) The OED's earliest example is from 1841, but full-text searching gives results that suggest it was already in common use by the mid-1830s.
^ Thomas, Gavin H.; Wills, Matthew A.; Székely, Tamás (2004). "A supertree approach to shorebird phylogeny" . BMC Evolutionary Biology . 4 : 28. doi :10.1186/1471-2148-4-28 . PMC 515296 . PMID 15329156 . 28.
^ Wied-Neuwied, Maximilian (1832). Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte von Brasilien (in German). Vol. 4, Part xx. Weimar: Im Verlage des Landes-Industrie-Comptoirs. p. 716.
^ Peters, James Lee , ed. (1934). Check-List of Birds of the World . Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 272.
^ Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names . London: Christopher Helm. p. 227. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4 .
^ Gill, Frank ; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela , eds. (August 2022). "Sandpipers, snipes, coursers" . IOC World Bird List Version 12.2 . International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 6 November 2022 .
External links
Scolopacidae (Numeniinae–Limosinae–Arenariinae)
Numeniinae
Limosinae
Arenariinae
Scolopacidae (Tringinae–Scolopacinae)