Black-fronted Dotterel (Elseyornis melanops)

About the Black-fronted Dotterel

The black-fronted dotterel (Thinornis melanops) is a small plover in the family Charadriidae that is found throughout much of Australia and New Zealand. The black-fronted dotterel was formally described in 1818 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot under the binomial name Charadrius melanops. The type locality was subsequently designated as New South Wales. The specific epithet combines the Ancient Greek melops meaning "black" with ōps meaning "face". This species was previously placed in the monotypic genus Elseyornis but a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2022 found that it was embedded in a clade containing members of the genus Thinornis. The black-fronted dotterel was therefore moved to Thinornis. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.