Tringa

Tringa
Common greenshank (Tringa nebularia) and common redshank (Tringa totanus) at Cuckmere Haven, Sussex, England
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Charadriiformes
Family:	Scolopacidae
Genus:	Tringa Linnaeus, 1758
Type species
Tringa ochropus (green sandpiper) Linnaeus, 1758
Species
13, see text
Synonyms
Catatrophorus Jardine, 1849 (unjustified emendation) Catoptophorus Des Murs, 1854 (unjustified emendation) Catoptrophonus Gray, 1871 (unjustified emendation) Catoptrophorus Bonaparte, 1827 Catorthrophorus Brehm, 1855 (unjustified emendation) Catroptophorus Giebel, 1877 (unjustified emendation) Helodromas Heteroscelus Baird, 1858 Pseudototanus Rhyacophilus Kaup, 1829 Rhyacophorus Bonaparte, 1842 (unjustified emendation) Rhyacophylus Lillo, 1905 (unjustified emendation) Rhynchophilus Bonaparte, 1856 (unjustified emendation) Rhyncophilus Des Murs, 1854 (unjustified emendation) Rhyocophilus Bonaparte, 1854 (unjustified emendation) Totanus Bechstein, 1803 Trynga Möhring, 1758 (suppressed)

Tringa is a genus of waders, containing the shanks and tattlers. The genus name Tringa is the Neo-Latin name given to the green sandpiper by the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1599. They are mainly freshwater birds, often with brightly coloured legs as reflected in the English names of six species, as well as the specific names of two of these and the green sandpiper. They are typically associated with northern hemisphere temperate regions for breeding. Some of this group—notably the green sandpiper—nest in trees, using the old nests of other birds, usually thrushes.

The willet and the tattlers have been found to belong in Tringa; these genus changes were formally adopted by the American Ornithologists' Union in 2006.^[1]

The present genus in the old, more limited sense was even further subdivided into Tringa proper and Totanus, either as subgenera or as full genera. The available DNA sequence data suggests however that neither of these is monophyletic and that the latter simply lumps together a number of more or less closely related apomorphic species. Therefore, it seems unwarranted to recognize Totanus even as a subgenus for the time being.^[2]