Christmas sandpiper

{{short description|Extinct species of bird}}

{{Speciesbox

| status = EX

| status_system = IUCN3.1

| status_ref ={{cite iucn |author=BirdLife International |date=2017 |title=Prosobonia cancellata |volume=2017 |page=e.T62289108A119208101 |doi=10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017-3.RLTS.T62289108A119208101.en |access-date=12 November 2021}}

| extinct = c.1800?

| image = Tuamotu Sandpiper.png

| image_caption = 1907 illustration by George Edward Lodge

| taxon = Prosobonia cancellata

| authority = (JF Gmelin, 1789)

| synonyms =

Tringa cancellata Gmelin, 1789

Aechmorhynchus cancellatus

Prosobonia cancellatus Collar and Andrew, 1988

Prosobonia cancellata

}}

The Christmas sandpiper or Kiritimati sandpiper (Prosobonia cancellata) was a small shorebird. It became extinct some time in the first half of the 19th century. It was endemic to Christmas Island (now called Kiritimati), since 1919 a part of Kiribati. It is known solely from a single contemporaneous illustration (by William Wade Ellis), and a description by William Anderson, both made during the third circumnavigation voyage commanded by Captain James Cook, which visited the atoll of Christmas Island between 24 December 1777 and 2 January 1778.{{cite journal |last1=Jansen |first1=Justin J.F.J. |last2=Cibois |first2=Alice |title=Clarifying the morphology of the enigmatic Kiritimati Sandpiper Prosobonia cancellata (J. F. Gmelin, 1785), based on a review of the contemporary data. |journal=Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club |date=22 June 2020 |volume=140 |issue=1 |pages=142–146 |doi=10.25226/bboc.v140i2.2020.a4 |doi-access=free }}

Taxonomy

The Christmas sandpiper was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the sandpipers in the genus Tringa and coined the binomial name Tringa cancellata.{{ cite book | last=Gmelin | first=Johann Friedrich | author-link=Johann Friedrich Gmelin| year=1789 | title=Systema naturae per regna tria naturae : secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis | edition=13th | volume=1, Part 2 | language=Latin | location=Lipsiae [Leipzig] | publisher=Georg. Emanuel. Beer | page= | url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2656168 }} Gmelin based his description on the "Barred phalarope" from Christmas Island that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his A General Synopsis of Birds . Latham's specimen had been supplied by the naturalist Joseph Banks.{{ cite book | last=Latham | first=John | author-link=John Latham (ornithologist) | year=1785 | title=A General Synopsis of Birds | volume=3, Part 1 | publisher=Printed for Leigh and Sotheby | location=London | page=274, No. 5 | url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40079055 }} Banks had accompanied James Cook on his first voyage to the south Pacific but had also received specimens from Cook's subsequent voyages.{{ cite journal | last=Medway | first=D.G. | date=2009 | title=The fate of the bird specimens from Cook's voyages possessed by Sir Joseph Banks | journal=Archives of Natural History | volume=36 | issue=2 | pages=231–243 | doi=10.3366/E0260954109000965 | pmid=20014506 }} The Christmas sandpiper is now placed in the genus Prosobonia that was introduced by Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1850.{{cite web| editor1-last=Gill | editor1-first=Frank | editor1-link=Frank Gill (ornithologist) | editor2-last=Donsker | editor2-first=David | editor3-last=Rasmussen | editor3-first=Pamela | editor3-link=Pamela Rasmussen | date=August 2022 | title=Sandpipers, snipes, coursers | work=IOC World Bird List Version 12.2 | url=https://www.worldbirdnames.org/bow/sandpipers/ | publisher=International Ornithologists' Union | access-date=3 November 2022}} The specific epithet cancellata is from Latin canellatus meaning "trellis-like" or "lattice-like".{{cite book | last=Jobling | first=James A. | year=2010| title=The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names | publisher=Christopher Helm | location=London | isbn=978-1-4081-2501-4 | page=88 | url=https://archive.org/stream/Helm_Dictionary_of_Scientific_Bird_Names_by_James_A._Jobling#page/n88/mode/1up }}

Prosobonia cancellata cancellata.jpg|William Ellis' image

References