Numenius

Whimbrel Numenius phaeopus, photographed by Juan Pedro Paz-Soldán.


Belongs within: Scolopacidae.

Numenius contains the curlews and whimbrels, relatively large shorebirds with long, strongly downcurved bills. The whimbrel Numenius phaeopus, bristle-thighed curlew N. tahitiensis and slender-billed curlew N. tenuirostris are smaller species with the bill straighter at the base and a sharper down-curve towards the end. The Eurasian curlew N. arquata, far easter curlew N. madagascariensis and long-billed curlew N. americanus are particularly large species with the entire bill more evenly curved; the last two species have the longest bills of any shore bird.

Characters (from Ridgway 1887): Bill decidedly arched or decurved; wings at least 200 mm long; back of tarsus covered with small hexagonal scales.

<==Numenius Brisson 1760 [=Cracticornis Gray 1841; incl. Mesoscolopax Sharpe 1896, Phaeopus Cuvier 1816] CC10
    |  i. s.: N. antiquus Milne-Edwards 1868 M02
    |         N. borealis JT12
    |         N. minor S66
    |         N. tenuirostris Vieillot 1817 I92
    |--+--N. tahitiensis (Gmelin 1789) JT12, CC10 [=Scolopax tahitiensis CC10, Phaeopus tahitiensis CC10]
    |  `--+--N. hudsonicus Latham 1790 BKB15, CC10 [=Limosa hudsonica CC10, N. phaeopus hudsonicus CC10]
    |     `--N. phaeopus (Linnaeus 1758) JT12, CC10 [=Scolopax phaeopus CC10, *Phaeopus phaeopus CC10]
    |          |--N. p. phaeopus CC10
    |          `--N. p. variegatus (Scopoli 1786) (see below for synonymy) CC10
    `--+--N. americanus JT12
       `--+--N. madagascariensis (Linnaeus 1766) JT12, CC10 (see below for synonymy)
          `--+--*N. arquata (Linnaeus 1758) CC10, JT12, M02 [=Scolopax arquata CC10, *Cracticornis arquata CC10]
             |    |--N. a. arquata M03
             |    `--N. a. orientalis M03
             `--N. minutus Gould 1841 JT12, CC10 [=*Mesoscolopax minutus CC10]

Numenius madagascariensis (Linnaeus 1766) JT12, CC10 [=Scolopax madagascariensis CC10; incl. N. australasianus Gould 1838 CC10, N. australis Gould 1838 CC10, N. cyanopus Vieillot 1817 CC10, N. rostratus Gray 1843 CC10, N. rufescens Gould 1863 CC10]

Numenius phaeopus variegatus (Scopoli 1786) [=Tantalus variegatus, Phaeopus phaeopus variegatus; incl. N. atricapillus Vieillot 1817, Scolopax luzoniensis Gmelin 1789, N. uropygialis Gould 1841, Limosa uropygialis] CC10

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[BKB15] Burleigh, J. G., R. T. Kimball & E. L. Braun. 2015. Building the avian tree of life using a large-scale, sparse supermatrix. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 84: 53–63.

[CC10] Checklist Committee (OSNZ). 2010. Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand, Norfolk and Macquarie Islands, and the Ross Dependency, Antarctica 4^th ed. Ornithological Society of New Zealand and Te Papa Press: Wellington.

[I92] Iwahashi, J. (ed.) 1992. Reddo Deeta Animaruzu: a pictorial of Japanese fauna facing extinction. JICC: Tokyo.

[JT12] Jetz, W., G. H. Thomas, J. B. Joy, K. Hartmann & A. Ø. Mooers. 2012. The global diversity of birds in space and time. Nature 491: 444–448.

[M02] Mlíkovský, J. 2002. Cenozoic Birds of the World. Part 1: Europe. Ninox Press: Praha.

[M03] Morcombe, M. 2003. Field Guide to Australian Birds 2^nd ed. Steve Parish Publishing.

Ridgway, R. 1887. A Manual of North American Birds. J. B. Lippincott Company: Philadelphia.

[S66] Sclater, P. L. 1866. Remarks on recent additions to the Society's menagerie. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1866: 203.

Last updated: 10 August 2019.