 the eskimo curlew or the northern curlew is one of eight species of curlew, and is classed in the genus numenius. it was one of the most numerous shorebirds in the tundra of western arctic canada and alaska, with approximately two million birds killed per year in the late 1800s. having not been seen in over 30 years, the eskimo curlew is now considered extinct. the bird was about  long and fed mostly on berries. ==taxonomy==  the eskimo curlew is one of eight species of curlew, and is classed with them in the genus numenius. it was formerly placed in the separate genus mesoscolopax. numenius is classed in the family scolopacidae. other species in that family include woodcocks, phalaropes, snipes, and sandpipers. scolopacidae is a charadriiform lineage. the species was described by johann reinhold forster in 1772. the generic name has three possible etymologies. one is that it comes from the greek "noumenios". "noumenios" means "of the new moon", the thin beak of this curlew being compared to a thin crescent moon. a second possibility is that the genus name is derived from the word numen, meaning "nod", and referring to this species head being bent forward and down. the final possibility is that numenius is a latinized form of the greek noumenios, which was the word diogenes laertius used to refer to a species of curlew. the specific name "b
Animals_described_in_1772 Curlews Extinct_animals_of_the_United_States IUCN_Red_List_critically_endangered_species Numenius