White-winged Sandpiper Article Index for
White-winged
 

Information About

White-winged Sandpiper




  Name White-winged Sandpiper
  Regnum Animal ia
  Phylum Chordata
  Classis Aves
  Ordo Charadriiformes
  Familia Scolopacidae
  Genus '' Prosobonia ''
  Species '''''P ellisi'''''
  Binomial ''Prosobonia ellisi''
  Binomial Authority Sharpe , 1906


The White-winged Sandpiper, ''Prosobonia ellisi'', is an Extinct member of the large Wader family Scolopacidae that was Endemic to the Moorea in French Polynesia .

Two specimens were collected in 1777 during Captain Cook’s third voyage, but both have since disappeared and the bird became extinct in the nineteenth century.

It was small mottled brown sandpiper with a short sharp black Beak more like that of an Insectivorous Passerine than a wader. It was similar in size and structure to the endangered Tuamotu Sandpiper , but had unbarred reddish underparts, a reddish streak above the eye and two white wingbars.

The exact relationships between the Moorea bird and the Tahitian Sandpiper are still not fully resolved. See the latter species' article for more on this topic.


REFERENCE

Walters, Michael (1991): ''Prosobonia ellisi'', an extinct species of sandpiper from Moorea, Society Islands. '' Bollettino Di Museo Regionale Di Scienze Naturali Torino '' 9:217-226