Snipe
| Snipe | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Pin-tailed snipe (Gallinago stenura) | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Charadriiformes |
| Family: | Scolopacidae |
| Genera | |
A snipe is any of about 25 wading bird species in three genera in the family Scolopacidae. They are characterized by a very long, slender bill and crypsis, or camouflage, plumage. The Gallinago snipes have a nearly worldwide distribution, the Lymnocryptes snipe is restricted to Asia and Europe and the Coenocorypha snipes are found only in the Outlying Islands of New Zealand. The three species of painted snipe are not closely related to the typical snipes, and are placed in their own family, the Rostratulidae.
Snipes search for invertebrates in the mud with a "sewing-machine" action of their long bills. The sensitivity of the bill, though to some extent noticeable in many sandpipers, is in snipes carried to an extreme by a number of filaments, belonging to the fifth pair of nerves, which run almost to the tip and open immediately under the soft cuticle in a series of cells. They give this portion of the surface of the premaxillaries, when exposed, a honeycomb-like appearance. Thus the bill becomes a most delicate organ of sensation, and by its means the bird, while probing for food, is at once able to distinguish the nature of the objects it encounters, though these are wholly out of sight.
Snipes feed mainly on insect larvae. Snipes also eat actual flies such as crane, horse and deer flies as well as beetles, dragonflies, crickets, grasshoppers, ants, mayflies, butterflies, caddisflies and moths. Other invertebrate prey include snails, crustaceans, and worms. The snipe's bill allows the very tip to remain closed while the snipe slurps up invertebrates.
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Wikipedia