Tundra Plovers
The family Charadriidae is very large with seventy species listed and is split into subfamilies.
The subfamily Pluvialinae contains four species of the genus Pluvialis.
Family: CHARADRIIDAE (Leach 1820)
Subfamily: PLUVIALINAE (MacGillivray 1852) Pt.1 The Tundra Plovers.
Genera: Four species in a single genus Pluvialis – Latin: pluvialis relating to rain (pluvia rain). (Brisson 1760)
Distribution
- Europe: European Golden Plover, Grey Plover.
- Africa: Pacific Golden Plover and Grey Plover.
- Asia: European Golden Plover, Pacific Golden Plover and Grey Plover.
- Australasia: Pacific Golden Plover and Grey Plover.
- North America: American Golden plover, Pacific Golden Plover and Grey Plover.
- Central and South America: American Golden Plover and Grey Plover.
Current Taxonomy: Four species.
- European Golden Plover Pluvialis apricaria (Linnaeus 1758)
- Pacific Golden Plover P. fulva (Gmelin 1789)
- American Golden Plover P. dominica (Müller 1776)
- Grey Plover P. squatarola (Linnaeus 1758)
- Previously the American and Pacific Golden plovers were lumped together as subspecies of Lesser Golden Plover as P. fulva fulva and P. f. dominica.
Bibliography
- BirdLife International: IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 26/03/2020
- del Hoyo, Josep, Andrew Elliot & Jordi Sargatal: Handbook of the Birds of the World – Vol. 3 (1996)
- Hayman, Peter, John Marchant & Tony Prater: Shorebirds – An identification guide to the waders of the world (1986)
- Jobling, James A.: Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names (2010)
- Seebohm, Henry: The Geographical Distribution of the Family Charadriidae, or, The Plovers, Sandpipers, Snipes, and Their Allies (1888)
Click on an image for more information about the individual species.
