Godwit

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Genus of birds

title: "Godwit" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["limosa", "taxa-named-by-mathurin-jacques-brisson"] description: "Genus of birds" topic_path: "general/limosa" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwit" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Genus of birds ::

|fossil_range = Barstovian–recent | image = Limosa limosa.jpg | image_caption = Black-tailed (front) and bar-tailed godwit (back) | taxon = Limosa | type_species = Scolopax limosa | type_species_authority = Linnaeus, 1758 | authority = Brisson, 1760 | subdivision_ranks = Species | subdivision = 4, see text

**Godwits ** are a group of four large, long-billed, long-legged and strongly migratory waders of the bird genus Limosa. Their long bills allow them to probe deeply in the sand for aquatic worms and molluscs. In their winter range, they flock together where food is plentiful. They frequent tidal shorelines, breeding in northern climates in summer and migrating south in winter. A female bar-tailed godwit made a flight of 29,000 km (18,000 mi), flying 11680 km of it without stopping. In 2020 a male bar-tailed godwit flew about 12,200 km non-stop in its migration from Alaska to New Zealand, previously a record for avian non-stop flight. In October 2022, a 5 month old, male bar-tailed godwit was tracked from Alaska to Tasmania, a trip that took 11 days, and recorded a non-stop flight of 8400 mi.

The godwits can be distinguished from the curlews by their straight or slightly upturned bills, and from the dowitchers by their longer legs. The winter plumages are fairly drab, but three species have reddish underparts when breeding. The females are appreciably larger than the males.

Godwits were once popular as food in the British Isles. Sir Thomas Browne writing in about 1682 noted that godwits "were accounted the daintiest dish in England".

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Waders_in_flight_Roebuck_Bay.jpg" caption="A flock of migratory waders, dominated by bar-tailed"] ::

Taxonomy

The genus Limosa was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760 with the black-tailed godwit (Limosa limosa) as the type species. The genus name Limosa is from Latin and means "muddy", from limus, "mud". The English name "godwit" was first recorded in about 1416–17 and is believed to imitate the bird's call.

The genus contains four living species:

|name= Bar-tailed godwit |binomial=Limosa lapponica |image=File:Bar-tailed Godwit.jpg|image-size=180px |image-alt=|image-caption=Breeding Plumage |image2 =File:Limosa lapponica 2 - Taren Point.jpg|image2-caption=Non-Breeding Plumage |authority-name=Linnaeus |authority-year=1758 |authority-not-original=yes |range= Scandinavia to Alaska, temperate and tropical regions of Australia and New Zealand. |range-image= |range-image-size=180px |size= |habitat= |hunting= |iucn-status= NT |population= |direction= |subspecies={{Collapsible list |expand=yes |title=Five subspecies |bullets=on |L. l. lapponica (Linnaeus, 1758) | L. l. yamalensis Bom et al. 2021 |L. l. taymyrensis Engelmoer & Roselaar, 1998 |L. l. menzbieri – Portenko, 1936 |L. l. baueri – Naumann, 1836

|name= Black-tailed godwit|binomial=Limosa limosa |image=File:Black tailed godwit (28524431355).jpg|image-size=180px |image-alt=|image-caption=Breeding Plumage |image2 =File:Black-tailed godwit at Ameenpur lake.jpg|image2-caption=Non-Breeding Plumage |authority-name=Linnaeus |authority-year=1758 |authority-not-original=yes |range= the Indian subcontinent, Australia, New Zealand, western Europe and west Africa. |range-image=File:LimosalimosaWorldDistribution.jpg |range-image-size=180px |size= |habitat= |hunting= |iucn-status= NT |population= |direction= |subspecies={{Collapsible list |expand=yes |title=Four subspecies |bullets=on |L. l. bohaii Zhu, Piersma, Verkuil & Conklin, 2020 |L. l. limosa Linnaeus, 1758 |L. l. islandica Brehm, 1831 |L. l. melanuroides Gould, 1846

|name= Hudsonian godwit |binomial=Limosa haemastica |image=File:Hudsonian Godwit - Churchill - Canada 01 (15657156459).jpg|image-size=180px |image-alt=|image-caption=Breeding Plumage |image2 =File:Limosa haemastica - Kogarah Bay.jpg|image2-caption=Non-Breeding Plumage |authority-name=Linnaeus |authority-year=1758 |authority-not-original=yes |range= northern Canada and winters in southern South America. |range-image=File:Limosa haemastica map.svg |range-image-size=180px |size= |habitat= |hunting= |iucn-status= VU |population= |direction= |subspecies=

|name= Marbled godwit |binomial=Limosa fedoa |image=File:Marbled Godwit (4463451677).jpg|image-size=180px |image-alt=|image-caption=Breeding Plumage |image2 =File:Marbled godwit, Limosa fedoa, Moss Landing (Elkhorn Slough and beach), California, USA. (25305609479).jpg|image2-caption=Non-Breeding Plumage |authority-name=Linnaeus |authority-year=1758 |authority-not-original=yes |range= Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts of the US and Mexico. |range-image=File:Limosa fedoa map.svg |range-image-size=180px |size= |habitat= |hunting= |iucn-status= VU |population= |direction= |subspecies={{Collapsible list |expand=yes |title=Two subspecies |bullets=on |L. f. beringiae Gibson & Kessel, 1989 |L. f. fedoa (Linnaeus, 1758)

Fossil species

In addition, there are two or three species of fossil prehistoric godwits. Limosa vanrossemi is known from the Monterey Formation (Late Miocene, approx. 6 mya) of Lompoc, United States. Limosa lacrimosa is known from the Early Pliocene of Western Mongolia (Kurochkin, 1985). Limosa gypsorum of the Late Eocene (Montmartre Formation, some 35 mya) of France may have actually been a curlew or some bird ancestral to both curlews and godwits (and possibly other Scolopacidae), or even a rail, being placed in the monotypic genus Montirallus by some (Olson, 1985). Certainly, curlews and godwits are rather ancient and in some respects primitive lineages of scolopacids, further complicating the assignment of such possibly basal forms.

In a 2001 study comparing the ratios cerebrum to brain volumes in various dinosaur species, Hans C. E. Larsson found that more derived dinosaurs generally had proportionally more voluminous cerebrum. Limosa gypsorum, then regarded as a Numenius species, was a discrepancy in this general trend. L. gypsorum was only 63% of the way between a typical reptilian ratio and that of modern birds. However, this may be explainable if the endocast was distorted, as it had been previously depicted in the past by Deschaseaux, who is described by Larsson as calling the endocast "slightly anteroposteriorly sheared and laterally compressed."

Citations

General sources

  • Larsson, H. C. E. 2001. Endocranial anatomy of Carcharodontosaurus saharicus (Theropoda: Allosauroidea) and its implications for theropod brain evolution. pp. 19–33. In: Mesozoic Vertebrate Life. Tanke, D. H., Carpenter, K., Skrepnick, M. W. (eds.). Indiana University Press.
  • Olson, Storrs L. (1985): Section X.D.2.b. "Scolopacidae". In: Farner, D.S.; King, J.R. & Parkes, Kenneth C. (eds.): Avian Biology 8: 174–175. Academic Press, New York.

References

  1. "Limosa Brisson 1760 (godwit)". PBDB.
  2. (17 September 2007). "Bird Completes Epic Flight Across the Pacific".
  3. Boffey, Daniel. (13 October 2020). "'Jet fighter' godwit breaks world record for non-stop bird flight". The Guardian.
  4. (27 October 2022). "An Incredible Bird Was Tracked As It Made A Cross-Globe Journey From Alaska To Tasmania (video)".
  5. Brisson, Mathurin Jacques. (1760). "Ornithologie, ou, Méthode Contenant la Divisio Oiseaux en Ordres, Sections, Genres, Especes & leurs Variétés". Jean-Baptiste Bauche.
  6. (1934). "Check-list of Birds of the World". Harvard University Press.
  7. Jobling, James A.. (2010). "The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names". Christopher Helm.
  8. {{Cite OED. Godwit
  9. (2019). "Buttonquail, plovers, seedsnipe, sandpipers". International Ornithologists' Union.
  10. (2004). "A supertree approach to shorebird phylogeny". [[BMC Evolutionary Biology.
  11. "Allometric Comparison", in Larsson (2001). p. 27.
  12. "Allometric Comparison", in Larsson (2001). p. 30.

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