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Small sandpiper-like shorebird having lobate toes and being good swimmers
Answer for the clue "Small sandpiper-like shorebird having lobate toes and being good swimmers ", 9 letters:
phalarope
Alternative clues for the word phalarope
Word definitions for phalarope in dictionaries
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Phalarope \Phal"a*rope\, n. [Gr. ? having a patch of white + ?, ?, a foot: cf. F. phalarope.] (Zo["o]l.) Any species of Phalaropus and allied genera of small wading birds ( Grall[ae] ), having lobate toes. They are often seen far from land, swimming in ...
Wikipedia
Word definitions in Wikipedia
__NOTOC__ A phalarope is any of three living species of slender-necked shorebirds in the genus Phalaropus of the bird family Scolopacidae . The English and genus names come through French phalarope and scientific Latin Phalaropus from Ancient Greek phalaris ...
Wiktionary
Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. Any of three small wading birds in the genus ''Phalaropus'', of the family Scolopacidae, that have lobed toes.
WordNet
Word definitions in WordNet
n. small sandpiper-like shorebird having lobate toes and being good swimmers; breed in the arctic and winter in the tropics
Usage examples of phalarope.
I have heard in the far, far west of Ireland, on Belmullet, where the phalarope lives.
In contrast, a polyandrous female phalarope produces on the average only 1.
My first scientific paper was also on the breeding behavior of a bird on a remote Arctic island: the red phalarope on Spitsbergen.
For instance, flocks of up to ten female phalaropes may pursue a male for miles.
Among some tiny birds called phalaropes, for example, everything about the sex roles is reversed.
In some bird species, such as phalaropes and Spotted Sandpipers, it's the male that does the work of incubating the eggs and rearing the chicks, while the female goes in search of another male to inseminate her again and to rear her next clutch.
For instance, flocks of up to ten female phalaropes may pursue a male for miles.
He grew anxious and thin and partially bald, and there she was on the lough, chasing the other phalaropes and being chased by them, crying pleep, pleep, pleep and never doing a beak's turn by way of labour or toil.
The best known of these female sultans are the shore birds called jacanas (alias lily-trotters), Spotted Sandpipers, and Wilson's Phalaropes.
Although the numbers of adult males and females may be equal, the ratio of sexually available females to males rises as high as seven-to-one among breeding Spotted Sandpipers and Wilson's Phalaropes.
The stranger would swing round to run parallel, keeping the Phalarope down to leeward.
From the moment the Phalarope had weighed anchor he had not spared himself or his efforts to maintain his hold over the ship.