Red-necked Phalarope

About the Red-necked Phalarope

The red-necked phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus), also known as the northern phalarope and hyperborean phalarope, is a small wader. This phalarope breeds in the Arctic regions of North America and Eurasia. It is migratory, and, unusually for a wader, winters at sea on tropical oceans.

In 1743, the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the red-necked phalarope in the first volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds. He used the English name "The coot-footed tringa". Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a specimen that had been collected off the coast of Maryland. When in 1758, the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the tenth edition, he placed the red-necked phalarope with the phalaropes and sandpipers in the genus Tringa. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Tringa lobata and cited Edwards' work. The red-necked phalarope is now placed in the genus Phalaropus that was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. The English and genus names come through French phalarope and scientific Latin Phalaropus from Ancient Greek phalaris, "coot",... Wikipedia →