Southern lapwing
Southern lapwing | |
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both V. c. lampronotus The Pantanal, Brazil | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Charadriiformes |
Family: | Charadriidae |
Genus: | Vanellus |
Species: | V. chilensis
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Binomial name | |
Vanellus chilensis (Molina, 1782)
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Subspecies | |
3-4 (see text) | |
Synonyms | |
Parra chilensis Molina, 1782 |
The southern lapwing (Vanellus chilensis), commonly called quero-quero in Brazil, or tero in Argentina and Uruguay, tero-tero in Paraguay, and queltehue in Chile is a
Description
This lapwing is the only crested wader in South America. It is 32 to 38 cm (13 to 15 in) in length and weighs approximately 250 to 425 g (8.8 to 15.0 oz). The upperparts are mainly brownish grey, with a bronze glossing on the shoulders. The head is particularly striking; mainly grey with a black forehead and throat patch extending onto the black breast. A white border separates the black of the face from the grey of the head and crest. The rest of the underparts are white and the eye ring, legs, and most of the bill are pink. It is equipped with red bony extensions under the wings (spurs), used to intimidate foes and fight birds of prey.
During its slow flapping flight, the southern lapwing shows a broad white wing bar separating the grey-brown of the back and wing coverts from the black flight feathers. The rump is white and the tail black. The call is a very loud and harsh keek-keek-keek.
There are three or four
Fossil record
In
Ecology
This is a lapwing of lake and river banks or open grassland. It has benefited from the extension of the latter habitat through widespread cattle ranching. When nesting in the vicinity of airports, it poses a threat to the safety of aerial traffic.[4] Its food is mainly insects (such as grasshoppers)[5] and other small invertebrates (including earthworms and cutworms), as well as small fish,[5] hunted using a run-and-wait technique mainly at night, often in flocks. In urban areas like Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and La Plata it can even be seen feeding on floodlit soccer pitches during televised matches.
The southern lapwing breeds cooperatively in social groups and that social group consists of a breeding pair with one or two young from the previous breeding season.[6] They breed on grassland and sometimes on ploughed fields, and have an aerobatic flapping display flight. It lays 2–3 (rarely 4) olive-brown eggs in a bare ground scape. The nest and young are defended noisily and aggressively against all intruders (including humans) by means of threats, vocalizations, and low flights. After the breeding season, it disperses into wetlands and seasonally-flooded tropical grassland.
Gallery
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Southern lapwing chick
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Nest of V. c. lampronotus with small clutch
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V. c. chilensis (Valdivia, Chile)
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Nesting V. c. lampronotus threatening photographer. Note spurs protruding from wrists.
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In flight
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Chick
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Skeleton
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V. c. cayennensis, Tobago
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Southern lapwing with youngster under wings
References
- . Retrieved 12 November 2021.
- .
- S2CID 198159856.
- ISBN 978-85-61368-00-5.
- ^ a b "Vanellus chilensis (Southern Lapwing" (PDF). Sta.uwi.edu. Retrieved 27 March 2022.
- S2CID 196682485.
Bibliography
- ffrench, Richard; O'Neill, John Patton; Eckelberry, Don R. (1991). A Guide to the Birds of Trinidad and Tobago (2nd ed.). Ithaca, N.Y.: Comstock Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8014-9792-6.
- Hayman, Peter; Marchant, John; Prater, Tony (1986). Shorebirds: an identification guide to the waders of the world. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-60237-9.
- Hilty, Steven L. (2003). Birds of Venezuela. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-7136-6418-8.
External links
- BirdLife species factsheet for Vanellus chilensis
- "Southern lapwing media". Internet Bird Collection.
- Southern lapwing photo gallery at VIREO (Drexel University)
- Southern lapwing species account at Neotropical Birds (Cornell Lab of Ornithology)
- Interactive range map of Vanellus chilensis at IUCN Red List maps
- Audio recordings of Southern lapwing on Xeno-canto.