Thinornis

Thinornis is a genus of plovers in the family Charadriidae.

Taxonomy

The genus Thinornis was introduced in 1844 by the English zoologist George Robert Gray to accommodate a single species, Thinornis rossii G.R. Gray, which is now considered a junior synonym of Charadrius novaeseelandiae J.F. Gmelin, the shore plover. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek this meaning "beach" or "sand" with ornis meaning "bird". Genetic studies have shown that Thinornis is sister to the genus Charadrius.
The genus contains seven species:

Image	Common name	Scientific name	Distribution
	Hooded plover	Thinornis cucullatus	southern Australia, including Tasmania
	Shore plover	Thinornis novaeseelandiae	Chatham Islands
	Black-fronted dotterel	Thinornis melanops	Australia, western Tasmania and New Zealand
	Forbes's plover	Thinornis forbesi	grassland and rocky hillsides of western and central Africa
	Three-banded plover	Thinornis tricollaris	southern Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa
	Long-billed plover	Thinornis placidus	Manchuria and East Asia
	Little ringed plover	Thinornis dubius	Eurasia

An additional species, the Auckland Islands shore plover, known from just one specimen collected in 1840, is now generally considered to be a juvenile shore plover whose location was incorrectly recorded.