Stint

For other uses, see Stint (disambiguation).

A stint is one of several very small waders in the genus Calidris. Some were formerly sometimes separated in the genus Erolia. In North America they are colloquially known as "peeps".

Little Stint at Jamnagar, India

Some of these birds are difficult to identify because of the similarity between species, and various breeding, non-breeding, juvenile, and moulting plumages. With a few exceptions, stints usually have a fairly stereotypical colour pattern, being brownish above and lighter, usually white, on much of the underside. They often have a lighter supercilium above brownish cheeks.

Systematics and taxonomy

In older delimitations the genus Calidris was not monophyletic; newer revisions have however made it monophyletic by the inclusion of a number of other species formerly treated in separate genera.^[1]

The genus Erolia was occasionally used for the stints ever since it was proposed by Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816; however, the type species of Erolia is the curlew sandpiper, which is not traditionally included among the stints. The curlew sandpiper's phylogenetic closest relative is now known to be the stilt sandpiper Calidris himantopus,^[2] rather than any of the stints, so Erolia, if differentiated from Calidris, does not include the stints. The sanderling, formerly sometimes placed in Crocethia, had also been suggested as a closer relative in older studies,^[3] but this too does not form a cohesive group with the stints.^[2]

Temminck's stint at Jamnagar, India

Long-toed stint (Calidris subminuta) in Kerala

The species called stints are:

• Red-necked stint Calidris ruficollis (syn. Erolia ruficollis)
• Little stint Calidris minuta (syn. Erolia minuta)
• Temminck's stint Calidris temminckii (syn. Erolia temminckii)
• Long-toed stint Calidris subminuta (syn. Erolia subminuta)

Other similarly small Calidris species include

• Spoon-billed sandpiper Calidris pygmaea (syn. Eurynorhynchus pygmeus)
• Semipalmated sandpiper Calidris pusilla (syn. Erolia pusilla)
• Western sandpiper Calidris mauri (syn. Erolia mauri)
• Least sandpiper Calidris minutilla (syn. Erolia minutilla)
• White-rumped sandpiper Calidris fuscicollis (syn. Erolia fuscicollis)
• Baird's sandpiper Calidris bairdii (syn. Erolia bairdii)

See also

• Hybridisation in shorebirds