18-477: Charadrius tectus Boddaert, 1783 Hoplopterus tectus (Boddaert, 1783) Lobivanellus tectus (Boddaert, 1783) Sarciophorus tectus (Boddaert, 1783) The black-headed lapwing or black-headed plover ( Vanellus tectus ) is a large lapwing , a group of largish waders in the family Charadriidae . It is a resident breeder across sub- Saharan Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia , although it has seasonal movements. It lays two or three eggs on
36-420: A ground scrape. These are conspicuous and unmistakable birds . They are medium-large waders with a black head other than a white forehead, lower face and bands across the rear head and nape. There is a wispy black crest like northern lapwing and the bill and legs are red. The tail is white, tipped black. In flight, the black-headed lapwing's upperwings have black flight feathers and brown coverts separated by
54-473: A selection of true lapwings and plovers would also give a good idea of charadriid wader evolution altogether. A mid- Oligocene – c.28 mya ( million years ago ) – fossil from Rupelmonde in Belgium has been assigned to Vanellus , but even if the genus were broadly defined, it is entirely unclear if the placement is correct. Its age ties in with the appearance of the first seemingly distinct Charadriinae at about
72-496: A shrill, wailing cry. The traditional terms "plover", "lapwing", and "dotterel" do not correspond exactly to current taxonomic models; thus, several of the Vanellinae are often called plovers, and one a dotterel, while a few of the "true" plovers (subfamily Charadriinae ) are known colloquially as lapwings. In general, a lapwing can be thought of as a larger plover. In Europe's Anglophone countries, lapwing refers specifically to
90-567: A specimen collected in Senegal. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined
108-539: A white bar. The underwings are white with black flight feathers. This species is a common breeder in wet lowland habitats close to water. It often feeds in drier habitats, such as golf courses and grassy scrub, picking insects and other invertebrates from the ground. The black-headed lapwing has a metallic tink-tink call. The black-headed lapwing was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1781 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from
126-430: Is Latin for "covered" (i.e. blackcrowned). Two subspecies are recognised: Lapwing Erythrogonys Vanellus Hoploxypterus and see text Lapwings ( subfamily Vanellinae) are any of various ground-nesting birds ( family Charadriidae ) akin to plovers and dotterels . They range from 10 to 16 inches (25 to 41 cm) in length, and are noted for their slow, irregular wingbeats in flight and
144-668: Is a species of plover in a monotypic genus in the subfamily Vanellinae . It is often gregarious and will associate with other waders of its own and different species, even when nesting. It is nomadic and sometimes irruptive . Adults distinctively marked: black cap or hood from bill, extending below eyes, merging at nape to grey-brown of back. White chin and throat. Broad black band on breast joining nape and also extending to flanks as chestnut stripe. Belly and vent white. Back and mantle grey-brown, mainly black upperwing with white trailing edge. Upper leg, including tarsal joint or "knee", red. Bill red with dark tip. The red-kneed dotterel
162-712: Is native to mainland Australia , Papua New Guinea , and Indonesia , and has occurred as a vagrant in Tasmania , Palau and New Zealand . Mainly margins of shallow ephemeral and permanent freshwater wetlands , occasionally saline wetlands, but rarely tidal wetlands. The red-kneed dotterel is long-legged and medium-sized (length 17–20 centimetres (6.7–7.9 in), wingspan 33–38 centimetres (13–15 in), weight 40–55 grams (1.4–1.9 oz)). Arthropods , molluscs , annelids and seeds. The red-kneed dotterel generally breeds from October to January, though it may nest in other months if suitable water conditions exist. It nests on
180-740: The Late Pleistocene . Little is known of this rather large lapwing; it may actually belong in Vanellus . The remaining Charadrii are highset and/or chunky birds, even decidedly larger than a lot of the scolopacid waders . The evolutionary trend regarding the Charadriidae – which make up most of the diversity of the Charadrii – thus runs contrary to Cope's Rule . Genus Vanellus Genus Hoploxypterus Genus Erythrogonys Red-kneed dotterel The red-kneed dotterel ( Erythrogonys cinctus )
198-535: The Quaternary . The Early Oligocene fossil Dolicopterus from Ronzon, France may be such an ancestral member of the Charadriidae or even the Vanellinae, but it has not been studied in recent decades and is in dire need of review. Apart from the prehistoric Vanellus , the extinct lapwing genus Viator has been described from fossils. Its remains were found in the tar pits of Talara in Peru and it lived in
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#1733114637321216-562: The binomial name Charadrius tectus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées . The black-headed lapwing is now placed in the genus Vanellus that was erected by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. The generic name Vanellus is the Medieval Latin for a "lapwing". It is a diminutive of the Latin vanus meaning "winnowing" or "fan". The specific epithet tectus
234-460: The northern lapwing , the only member of this group to occur in most of the continent and thus the first bird to go by the English name lapwing (also known as peewit or pyewipe ). In the fanciful taxonomy promoted by medieval courtesy books , a group of lapwings was called a "deceit". While authorities generally agree that there are approximately 25 species of Vanellinae, classifications within
252-513: The Vanellinae is scant and mostly recent in origin; no Neogene lapwings seem to be known. On the other hand, it appears as if early in their evolutionary history the plovers, lapwings and dotterels must have been almost one and the same, and they are hard to distinguish osteologically even today. Thus, since the Red-kneed Dotterel is so distinct that it might arguably be considered a monotypic subfamily, reliably dating its divergence from
270-431: The living Vanellinae or just immediately outside it thus means that their last common ancestor – or even the last common ancestor of plovers and lapwings – almost certainly was a plover-sized bird with a black crown and breast-band, a white feather patch at the wrist, no hallux, and a lipochromic (probably red) bill with a black tip. Its legs were most likely black or the color of the bill's base. The fossil record of
288-413: The missing hallux (hind toe) are like those of lapwings: it is still not entirely clear whether it is better considered the most basal plover or lapwing. The IOC also recognizes a monotypic genus Hoploxypterus for the pied plover . Many coloration details of the red-kneed dotterel also occur here and there among the living members of the main lapwing clade . Its position as the most basal of
306-544: The same time, and with the presence of more basal Charadriidae a few million years earlier. However, the assignment of fragmentary fossils to Charadriinae or Vanellinae is not easy. Thus, it is very likely that the charadriid waders originate around the Eocene -Oligocene boundary – roughly 40–30 mya – but nothing more can be said at present. If the Belgian fossil is not a true lapwing, there are actually no Vanellinae fossils known before
324-545: The subfamily remain confused. Some workers have gone so far as to group all the "true" lapwings (except the red-kneed dotterel ) into the single genus Vanellus . Current consensus favors a more moderate position, but it is unclear which genera to split. The Handbook of Birds of the World provisionally places all Vanellinae in Vanellus except the red-kneed dotterel, which is in the monotypic Erythrogonys . Its plesiomorphic habitus resembles that of plovers , but details like
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