Dowitcher

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]

Dowitcher
Short-billed dowitcher (Limnodromus griseus)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Class: Aves
Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Scolopacidae
Subfamily: Scolopacinae
Genus: Limnodromus
Wied-Neuwied, 1833
Type species
Scolopax noveboracensis[1] = Scolopax grisea
Species

See text.

They resemble godwits in body and bill shape, and the reddish underparts in summer, but are much shorter legged, more like snipe to which they are also somewhat 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
  1. "Alcidae". aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  2. "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.
  3. 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.
  4. Wied-Neuwied, Maximilian (1832). Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte von Brasilien (in German). Vol. 4, Part xx. Weimar: Im Verlage des Landes-Industrie-Comptoirs. p. 716.
  5. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1934). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 272.
  6. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 227. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  7. 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.
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