Seedsnipes

Seedsnipes are a small family of gregarious wader birds, known as Thinocoridae, consisting of four species split across two genera, Attagis and Thinocorus. Native to South America, particularly the Andean and Patagonian regions, these birds have adapted to a herbivorous diet, although their relationships to other birds in the Charadriiformes order, like the plains wanderer, jacanas, and painted snipes, remain unclear. Despite their name, seedsnipes do not mainly feed on seeds and do not look like true snipes; they have short bills, small heads, and generally cryptic plumage with some sexual dimorphism noted in the Thinocorus genus. Size-wise, seedsnipes range from sparrow to ptarmigan in size, with the latter being the larger ones within the Attagis genus. They are adapted to live in harsh environments such as grasslands, grass steppes, semi-arid deserts, and even up to alpine regions near the snowline. They nest on the ground, laying 2-3 eggs in a simple shallow scrape, and some species like the Thinocorus rumicivorus partake in pollination when feeding on the flower petal appendages of the Calceolaria uniflora.