Auckland Islands shore plover

Auckland Islands shore plover
Conservation status
Extinct  (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Charadriiformes
Family:	Charadriidae
Genus:	Thinornis
Species:	T. rossii
Binomial name
Thinornis rossii G. R. Gray, 1845[1]

The Auckland Islands shore plover (Thinornis rossii), also called Ross’s plover, is a small extinct plover known only from a single specimen, apparently collected in the Auckland Islands in 1840 by the crew of HMS Erebus, and now in the collection of the British Natural History Museum. Its status as a species distinct from the shore plover was uncertain for many years. Charles Fleming speculated about whether the lone specimen represented an unknown intermediate plumage, a melanistic mutant, or a separate species.^[2] The consensus today, however, is that it is an immature Thinornis novaeseelandiae with an incorrectly-recorded location.^[3]

References

1. Gray, G.R. (1845). Part 3. Birds. In: Richardson, J. & Gray, J.E. (eds). The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Erebus and Terror, under the command of Capt. Sir James Clark Ross during the years 1839 to 1843. Vol.1. London.
2. Fleming, Charles (1939). "Birds of the Chatham Islands. Part III: The Shore Plover". Emu. 39 (1): 1–15. doi:10.1071/MU939001.
3. Gill, Brian J.; Bell, B. D.; Chambers, G. K.; Medway, D. G.; Palma, R. L.; Scofield, R. P.; Tennyson, A. J. D.; Worthy, T. H. (2010). Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand (4th ed.). Wellington, N.Z.: Te Papa Press. ISBN 978-1-877385-59-9.