Biology:Rynchops
| Skimmers | |
|---|---|
_in_flight.jpg)
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| Black skimmer (R. niger) skimming | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Charadriiformes |
| Family: | Laridae |
| Genus: | Rynchops Linnaeus, 1758 |
| Type species | |
| Rynchops niger (black skimmer) Linnaeus, 1758
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| Species | |
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The skimmers, forming the genus Rynchops, are tern-like birds in the family Laridae. The genus comprises three species found in South Asia, Africa, and the Americas. They were formerly known as the scissorbills.[1]
The three species are the only birds with distinctive uneven bills, where the lower mandible is longer than the upper.[citation needed] This remarkable adaptation allows them to fish in a unique way, flying low and fast over streams.[2] Their lower mandible skims or slices over the water's surface, ready to snap shut any small fish unable to dart clear. The skimmers are sometimes included within the gull family Laridae but separated in other treatments which consider them as a sister group of the terns.[3] The black skimmer has an additional adaptation and is the only species of bird known to have slit-shaped pupils.[4] Their bills fall within their field of binocular vision, which enables them to carefully position their bill and capture prey.[5] They are agile in flight and gather in large flocks along rivers and coastal sand banks.[6]
They are tropical and subtropical species which lay 3–6 eggs on sandy beaches. The female incubates the eggs. Because of the species' restricted nesting habitat the three species are vulnerable to disturbance at their nesting sites. One species, the Indian skimmer, is considered vulnerable by the IUCN due to this as well as destruction and degradation of the lakes and rivers it uses for feeding.[7]
As in later editions of the works of Linnaeus, the correct spelling (from the Greek words ῥύνχος and ὤψ, together meaning "beak-face") should be rhynchops and this is often adopted. However, the misspelling rynchops was the one first published by Linnaeus and continues to be more commonly used.[8] Similarly, the gender of the Greek and Roman words is feminine and the genus was originally treated as such (R. nigra) but Rynchops is now usually treated as a masculine noun (R. niger).
Taxonomy
The genus Rynchops was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.[9][lower-alpha 1] The genus name Rynchops is from the Ancient Greek ῥυνχος/rhunkhos meaning "bill" and κοπτω/koptō meaning "to cut off".[11] The type species is the black skimmer (Rynchops niger).[12]
Species
The genus contains three species.[13]
| Image | Common and binomial names | Range |
|---|---|---|
|
Black skimmer (Rynchops niger) |
Atlantic coast of North America, and from southern California to Peru in the Pacific, the Amazon basin, Atlantic coast of South America south to central Argentina |
|
African skimmer (Rynchops flavirostris) |
Senegal to northern Congo River and southern Nile Valley, southern Tanzania to the Zambezi Valley, and then to KwaZulu-Natal Province (South Africa) and Angola |
|
Indian skimmer (Rynchops albicollis) |
Pakistan in the Indus river system of Kashmir and northern and central India along the Ganges, Bangladesh and Burma and formerly occurred in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam |
Notes
References
- ↑ "scissorbill, n.", Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
- ↑ Mariano-Jelicich, R; Favero, M.; Silva, M.P. (February 2003). "Fish Prey of the Black Skimmer Rynchops Niger at Mar Chiquita, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina". Marine Ornithology 31: 199–202. http://www.marineornithology.org/PDF/31_2/31_2_199-202.pdf. Retrieved 2009-06-29.
- ↑ Fain MG; Peter Houde (2007). "Multilocus perspectives on the monophyly and phylogeny of the order Charadriiformes (Aves)". BMC Evolutionary Biology 7: 35. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-7-35. PMID 17346347.
- ↑ Zusi, RL; D Bridge (1981). "On the Slit Pupil of the Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger)". Journal of Field Ornithology 52 (4): 338–340. http://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/jfo/v052n04/p0338-p0340.pdf.
- ↑ Martin, G.R., Rojas, L.M., and McNeil, R. (2007). "Vision and the foraging technique of Skimmers (Rynchopidae)". Ibis 149 (4): 750–757. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.2007.00706.x.
- ↑ Fusco, P.J. "Connecticut Wildlife ." Connecticut Department of Environment Protection Bureau of Natural Resources – Wildlife Division. May–June 2006. Accessed 2009-06-29.
- ↑ "Large dams and barrages are an increasing threat to wetland-dependent birds". BirdLife International. http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/sowb/casestudy/150.
- ↑ Amaral, A do (1967). "Comment on the gender of names ending in -ops". Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 24 (1): 2. https://archive.org/stream/bulletinofzoolog24inte#page/2/mode/1up/.
- ↑ Linnaeus, Carl (1758) (in Latin). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae (Stockholm): Laurentii Salvii. p. 138. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/727043.
- ↑ David, N.; Dickinson, E.; Gregory, S. (2009). "Contributions to a list of first reviser actions: ornithology". Zootaxa 2085 (1): 1–24. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.2085.1.1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268076883.
- ↑ Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 344. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
- ↑ Peters, James Lee, ed (1934). Check-List of Birds of the World. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 349. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/14483162.
- ↑ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds (July 2021). "Noddies, gulls, terns, skimmers, skuas, auks". IOC World Bird List Version 11.2. International Ornithologists' Union. https://www.worldbirdnames.org/bow/gulls/. Retrieved 16 August 2021.
External links
- Skimmer videos on the Internet Bird Collection
Wikidata ☰ Q212941 entry
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