The
genus Charadrius was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist
Carl Linnaeus in the
tenth edition of his
Systema Naturae. The name had been used (as
Charadrios sive Hiaticula) by the Italian naturalist
Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1603 for the
common ringed plover. The word is
Late Latin and is mentioned in the
Vulgate Bible. It derives from the
Ancient Greek χαραδριος
/kharadrios, an unidentified plain-coloured nocturnal bird that was found in ravines and river valleys (from
kharadra, "ravine"). The
type species is the common ringed plover. However, it once appeared that the taxonomy of “
Charadrius” was erroneous, as for example the
Kentish plover is more closely related to lapwings than it is to, say, the greater ringed plover. Hence, either all members of Charadriidae, excluding
Pluvialis are grouped in a single genus,
Charadrius, or the genus is reduced to the
common ringed plover,
piping plover,
semipalmated plover, and
killdeer. The latter option was chosen. Based on a molecular phylogenetic study by Natalie Dos Remedios and collaborators that was published in 2015 and another study by David Cerný and Rossy Natale published in 2022, the generic boundaries in the family
Charadriidae have been changed to create
monophyletic genera. The genetic results show that
Charadrius is
sister to the genus
Thinornis and that the two genera shared a common ancestor around 18 million years ago. Here, they are treated as separate genera rather than an alternative treatment in which
Charadrius is expanded to include the species in
Thinornis.
Species The genus now contains four species: ==Notes==