Attagis

Attagis is a genus of seedsnipe, a South American family of small gregarious waders which have adapted to a vegetarian diet.

Attagis
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Charadriiformes
Family:	Thinocoridae
Genus:	Attagis Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, I. & Lesson, RP, 1831
Type species
Attagis gayi[1] I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire & Lesson, 1831
Species
Attagis gayi Attagis malouinus

These birds look superficially like partridges in structure and bill shape. They have short legs and long wings. Their 2-3 eggs are laid in a shallow scrape on the ground.

The genus was erected by the French ornithologists Isidore Saint-Hilaire and René Lesson in 1831 with the rufous-bellied seedsnipe (Attagis gayi) as the type species.^[2][3] The name Attagis is the word used for a game bird in Ancient Greek texts. It probably referred to the black francolin (Francolinus francolinus).^[4]

Species

The genus contains two species:^[5]

Genus Attagis – Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, I. & Lesson, RP, 1831 – two species

Common name	Scientific name and subspecies	Range	Size and ecology	IUCN status and estimated population
Rufous-bellied seedsnipe	Attagis gayi Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, I & Lesson, RP, 1831 Three subspecies A. g. gayi A. g. latrelillii A. g. simonsi	Andes of South America south from Ecuador.	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
White-bellied seedsnipe	Attagis malouinus (Boddaert, 1783)	southwestern Argentina and Tierra del Fuego.	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC

These are the larger of the four seedsnipe species.

References

1. "Thinocoridae". aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 2023-07-27.
2. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Isidore; Lesson, René (1831). Centurie Zoologique (in French). pp. 130, 135.
3. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1934). Check-list of Birds of the World. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 306.
4. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 60. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
5. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2019). "Grebes, flamingos, buttonquail, plovers, painted-snipes, jacanas, plains-wanderer, seedsnipes". World Bird List Version 9.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 19 July 2019.

• Shorebirds by Hayman, Marchant and Prater ISBN 0-395-60237-8