Jacanidae
family of birds
The jacanas (sometimes referred to as Jesus birds or lily trotters) are a group of tropical waders in the family Jacanidae. They are found in tropical regions around the world. They are noted for their elongated toes and toenails that allow them to spread out their weight while foraging on floating or semi-emergent aquatic vegetation. They are also among the somewhat rare groups of birds in which females are larger, and several species maintain harems of males in the breeding season with males solely responsible for incubating eggs and taking care of the chicks.
Taxonomy
The family Jacanidae was introduced in 1854 by the French naturalists Jean-Charles Chenu and Marc des Murs. They used the spelling "Jacaneinae". The modern spelling "Jacanidae" was used by Leonhard Stejneger in 1885.
The pronunciation of the word jacana is debated. Jacana is Linnæus' scientific Latin spelling of the Portuguese jaçanã which in turn is derived from a Tupi name of the bird, ñaha'nã. The Portuguese word is pronounced approximately [ʒɐsɐˈnɐ̃].
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This entry incorporates text from “Jacanidae” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.