The family Charadriidae is very large with seventy species listed and is split into subfamilies.
The subfamily Charadriinae contains forty-two species in eight genera species of the genera;
Charadrius (11), Anarhynchus (25), Oreopholus (1) Phegornis (1), Hoploxypterus (1) Eudromias (1), Zonibyx (1) and Peltohyas (1). We have further divided this group into three sections.
Section 2, Other Plovers appear on this page.
Family: CHARADRIIDAE (Leach 1820)
Subfamily: CHARADRIINAE (Leach 1820)
Genera: There are six species of plover within six genera in the group which we define as Other Plovers.
- Oreopholus – Greek; oreopolos haunting mountains (oros mountain; poleo to range over) (Jardine & Selby 1835).
- Phegornis – Greek; phengos light, splendour; ornis bird (Gray, G.1846).
- Hoploxypterus – Greek; hoplon weapon; oxus sharp; pteros winged (Bonaparte 1860).
- Eudromias – Greek; eudromia swiftness eudromeo to be fleet of foot (Brehm 1830).
- Zonibyx – Greek; zone band, girdle; Modern Latin; ibyx lapwing – from the Greek ibux ibis. (Reichenbach, H.G.L. 1853).
- Peltohyas – Greek; pelte small rimless shield; hyas from Greek mythology Hyas was a water-spirit. (Sharpe 1896)
- Australasia: Inland Dotterel.
- South America: Tawny-throated Dotterel, Diademed Sandpiper-plover, Pied Plover, Rufous-chested Plover.
- Europe/Asia: Eurasian Dotterel.
Some species which originally had a genus of their own are now considered Charadrius (Linnaeus 1756); Hooded and Shore (Thinornis Gray G. 1845) and Black-fronted Plovers (Elseyornis Vieillot 1818) from Australasia.
Some like Inland Dotterel went that way but have returned to Peltohyas (Sharpe 1896) as Eurasian Dotterel has returned to Eudromias (Brehm 1830).
One species, the Pied Plover was originally placed in Charadrius, then moved to the current genus, but for a while was removed and placed in Vanellus from where it was returned to Hoploxypterus.
- 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.