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Scolopaci (1 Viewer)

Justin J. F. J. Jansen, Alice Cibois. Clarifying the morphology of the enigmatic Kiritimati Sandpiper Prosobonia cancellata (J. F. Gmelin, 1785), based on a review of the contemporary data. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club, 140(2):142-146 (2020). https://doi.org/10.25226/bboc.v140i2.2020.a4

Abstract:

The extinct Kiritimati Sandpiper Prosobonia cancellata is known from a single contemporaneous illustration by William Wade Ellis and a description by William Anderson. We reproduce Ellis' illustration for the first time, and we consider the illustration as almost in line with Anderson's description. Further, using both Anderson's work and Ellis' illustration, we prepared a description of the bird to replace Latham's interpretation of the depiction. Finally, we show that Kiritimati Sandpiper possessed several unique morphological characters.

[full article]

Five species?
 
The fifth is from Henderson, known only from bones but for some reason undescribed.

Hmm, I never heard of this one. I heard of a Prosobonia sp. nov. Steadman, 1995. from the Holocene of Mangaia in the Cook Islands, Polynesia that still is undescribed. But Mangaia is not Henderson Island.

Reference:

David William Steadman, 1995
Prehistoric Extinctions of Pacific Island Birds: Biodiversity Meets Zooarchaeology
Science 267: 1123-1131; table 3 page 1127

Fred
 
Justin J. F. J. Jansen, Alice Cibois. Clarifying the morphology of the enigmatic Kiritimati Sandpiper Prosobonia cancellata (J. F. Gmelin, 1785), based on a review of the contemporary data. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club, 140(2):142-146 (2020). https://doi.org/10.25226/bboc.v140i2.2020.a4

Abstract:

The extinct Kiritimati Sandpiper Prosobonia cancellata is known from a single contemporaneous illustration by William Wade Ellis and a description by William Anderson. We reproduce Ellis' illustration for the first time, and we consider the illustration as almost in line with Anderson's description. Further, using both Anderson's work and Ellis' illustration, we prepared a description of the bird to replace Latham's interpretation of the depiction. Finally, we show that Kiritimati Sandpiper possessed several unique morphological characters.

[full article]

Frankly, the illustration and the description could match several migrant or vagrant waders.

Even if small details do not match common migrant waders, details also do not match between the illustration and the description either, which suggests not very detailed reporting: supercilium reaching far to the nape/reaching to the eye, belly brown (suggesting Prosobonia)/belly white with limited pattern.
 
Hi Justin,

Can you give some details about this paper, like author(s)?

Fred
Hi Fred,

It is cited in our paper:
De Pietri, V. L., Worthy, T. H., Scofield, R. P., Cole, T. L., Wood, J. R., Cibois, A., Jansen J. J. F. J., Zhang, G., Mitchell, K. J., Feng, S., Chen, W., Tennyson, A. J. D. & Wragg, G. M. submitted. A new species of Polynesian sandpiper (Charadriiformes: Scolopacidae: Prosobonia) from Henderson Island, Pitcairn Group, and the scolopacid affinities of Prosobonia. Zool. J. Linn. Soc.

Yours, Justin
 
Hi Fred,

It is cited in our paper:
De Pietri, V. L., Worthy, T. H., Scofield, R. P., Cole, T. L., Wood, J. R., Cibois, A., Jansen J. J. F. J., Zhang, G., Mitchell, K. J., Feng, S., Chen, W., Tennyson, A. J. D. & Wragg, G. M. submitted. A new species of Polynesian sandpiper (Charadriiformes: Scolopacidae: Prosobonia) from Henderson Island, Pitcairn Group, and the scolopacid affinities of Prosobonia. Zool. J. Linn. Soc.

Yours, Justin

I bewlieve you when you say it is cited, but unfortunately I have computer problems, I cannot download anything, the only thing partly working is internet. But many thanks for citing it again!

All the best,

Fred
 
Zhu, B.-R., Y.I. Verkuil, J.R. Conklin, A. Yang, W. Lei, J.A. Alves, C.J. Hassell, D. Dorofeev, Z. Zhang, and T. Piersma (2020)
Discovery of a morphologically and genetically distinct population of Black‐tailed Godwits in the East Asian‐Australasian Flyway
Ibis (advance online publication)
doi: 10.1111/ibi.12890
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ibi.12890

Occurring across Eurasia, the Black‐tailed Godwit Limosa limosa has three recognized subspecies, from east to west melanuroides, limosa, and islandica, respectively. With the smallest body size, melanuroides has been considered the only subspecies in the East Asian‐Australasian Flyway. Yet, observations along the Chinese coast indicated the presence of distinctively large individuals. Here we compared the morphometrics of these larger birds captured in northern Bohai Bay, China, with those of the three known subspecies and explore the genetic population structuring of Black‐tailed Godwits based on the control region of the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA).
 
There appears to be a wordpigs in the paper, just prior to the Discussion section, where the word salad 'elanosemipalmatus' appears. I would venture that the 'elano' part is an unintended copy of a snippet from the preceding word 'melanoleuca' and that the 'semipalmatus' part actually was intended to refer to Willet, T. semipalmata, as the final sentences in the paper indicate (where an 'a' is omitted from the end of menoleuc!)

I've asked the lead author for a copy of the Figure S1.

This paper would appear to put the final nail in the coffin of Ereneutes as a full genus?
MJB

Is it possible to send me all of the figures please ?
 
Bom, R.A., J.R. Conklin, Y.I. Verkuil, J.A. Alves, J. De Fouw, A. Dekinga, C.J. Hassell, R.H.G. Klaassen, A.Y. Kwarteng, E. Rakhimberdiev, A. Rocha, J. Ten Horn, T.L. Tibbitts, P.S. Tomkovich, R. Victor, and T. Piersma (2021)
Central-West Siberian-breeding Bar-tailed Godwits (Limosa lapponica) segregate in two morphologically distinct flyway populations
Ibis (advance online publication)
doi: 10.1111/ibi.13024

Long-distance migratory species often include multiple breeding populations, with distinct migration routes, wintering areas and annual-cycle timing. Detailed knowledge on population structure and migratory connectivity provides the basis for studies on the evolution of migration strategies and for species conservation. Currently, five subspecies of Bar-tailed Godwits Limosa lapponica have been described. However, with two apparently separate breeding and wintering areas, the taxonomic status of the subspecies L. l. taymyrensis remains unclear. Here we compare taymyrensis Bar-tailed Godwits wintering in the Middle East and West Africa, respectively, with respect to migration behaviour, breeding area, morphology and population genetic differentation in mitochondrial DNA. By tracking 52 individuals from wintering and staging areas over multiple years, we show that Bar-tailed Godwits wintering in the Middle East bred on the northern West-Siberian Plain (n = 19), whilst birds from West Africa bred further east, mostly on the Taimyr Peninsula (n = 12). The two groups differed significantly in body size and shape, and also in the timing of both northward and southward migrations. However, they were not genetically differentiated, indicating that the phenotypic (i.e. geographic, morphological and phenological) differences arose either very recently or without current reproductive isolation. We conclude that the taymyrensis taxon consists of two distinct populations with mostly non-overlapping flyways, which warrant treatment as separate taxonomic units. We thus propose to distinguish a more narrowly defined taymyrensis subspecies (i.e. the Bar-tailed Godwits wintering in West Africa and breeding on Taimyr), from a new yamalensis subspecies (i.e. the birds wintering in the Middle East and breeding on the northern West-Siberian Plain).
 
Conklin, J.R., Y.I. Verkuil, P.F. Battley, C.J. Hassell, J. ten Horn, J.A. Johnson, P.S. Tomkovich, A.J. Baker, T. Piersma, and M.C. Fontaine (2022)
Global flyway evolution in red knots Calidris canutus and genetic evidence for a Nearctic refugium
Molecular Ecology (advance online publication)
doi: 10.1111/mec.16379

Present-day ecology and population structure are the legacies of past climate and habitat perturbations, and this is particularly true for species that are widely distributed at high latitudes. The red knot, Calidris canutus, is an arctic-breeding, long-distance migratory shorebird with six recognized subspecies defined by differences in morphology, migration behavior, and annual cycle phenology, in a global distribution thought to have arisen just since the last glacial maximum (LGM). We used nextRAD sequencing of 10,881 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to assess the neutral genetic structure and phylogeographic history of 172 red knots representing all known global breeding populations. Using population genetics approaches, including model-based scenario-testing in an approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) framework, we infer that red knots derive from two main lineages that diverged ca. 34,000 years ago, and thus most probably persisted at the LGM in both Palearctic and Nearctic refugia, followed by at least two instances of secondary contact and admixture. Within two Beringian subspecies (C. c. roselaari and rogersi), we detected previously unknown genetic structure among sub-populations sharing a migratory flyway, reflecting additional complexity in the phylogeographic history of the region. Conversely, we found very weak genetic differentiation between two Nearctic populations (rufa and islandica) with clearly divergent migratory phenotypes and little or no apparent contact throughout the annual cycle. Together, these results suggest that relative gene flow among migratory populations reflects a complex interplay of historical, geographical, and ecological factors.
 
Sangster, G. and J.A. Luksenburg (2023)
The published complete mitochondrial genome of Spotted Greenshank (Tringa guttifer) is a chimera with DNA from Red-necked Stint (Calidris ruficollis) (Aves: Charadriiformes)
Mitochondrial DNA Part B 8: 1273–1275
doi: 10.1080/23802359.2023.2282791

A recently published complete mitochondrial genome of Spotted Greenshank (Tringa guttifer) was the first DNA sequence of this species (GenBank accession number MK905885, RefSeq number NC_044665; Liu et al. 2019, The complete mitochondrial genome of the Spotted Greenshank Tringa guttifer (Charadriiforemes [sic]: Charadriidae), Mitochondrial DNA Part B. 4:2353–2354). Here we show that this mitogenome is actually a chimera containing DNA fragments of both a Tringa sandpiper (presumably T. guttifer) and the Red-necked Stint (Calidris ruficollis). This mitogenome has been re-used in at least three phylogenies. The error is documented to avoid the perpetuation of erroneous sequence information in the literature.
 
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