the 3 types of the Wassertreter is adjusted the strongest by all the Regenpfeiferartigen at a life on the water. they have very dense sub-plumage on the body-underside so that a strong air-cushion between the feathers gives a strong buoyancy to the dainty birds. Wassertreter therefore swim like corks on the water. The runs are very strongly compressed lateral through what the water-resistance is low with the swimming-movements. The front-toes don't carry any swimming or instep-skins like with other "Limikolen" but are widened to swimming-rags at the side, as they occur also with rag-divers and Bläßhühnern.
Reproduction Also the "role-reversion" is all 3 Wassertreterarten together with the reproductive-behavior. Here, the females take over them perform courtship display, during the male birds the nest-construction and the Jungenaufzucht is incumbent on. Female Wassertreter become bigger than males and are also in the brood-dress of colorful befiedert. In the silence-dress against it, the sexes don't differ of each other. All Wassertreter brood in arctic regions and move after conclusion of the reproductive-period far southward.
Often, Wassertreter brood in relaxed colony-associations and form larger troops particularly outside the incubation. If unlocked the birds narrowly in the swarm-association in exact formation flies and executes swings and turns synchronized, they are good to recognize as plover-relatives.
Wilson-Wassertreter The 20-23 cm long Wilson-Wassertreter or the American Odinshühnchen (Phalaropus [Steganopus] tricolor) brood mainly in the northern prairies and foothills of the Rocky Mountains although the complete Brutareal from southwest and means-Canada is enough as far as after means-California, Nevada and North-Iowa. it differs from the two smaller, also in the old world of spread Wassertreterarten through its longer and daintier beak, the altogether slimmer body-form and its longer, powerful legs.
Wilson-Wassertreter spend the winter in the low-countries of Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay as well as in the plateaus of the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes (almost until 45° südl). Br.). Occasionally, these birds appear also in Europe as Irrgäste. As food, Wilson-Wassertreter arthropods and its larva, snails and occasionally also small worms as well as other invertebrates from flat-water-areas look for itself.
Thorshühnchen The 20,5-22 cm big and 41-77 g heavy Thorshühnchen (Phalaropus fulicarius) differs through the mainly bay plumage from the two other types in the brood-dress. Thorshühnchen brood Iceland in the arctic, offshore Tundrengebieten North America, Greenland, Spitzbergens as well as on Nowaja Semlja and in the northern Siberia (eastward as far as to the Tschuktschen-Halbinsel).
To the winter, Thorshühnchen move in the plankton-hands southern waters of the Pacific before the coasts of Peru and Chile as well as into the southern Atlantic before the coasts of Argentina and west-Africa (into the area of Humboldt and Benguela-Strom). This are only the main-hibernation-areas; Thorshühnchen were also thinned out found outside the incubation in many other Meeresgebieten where they spend the whole winter on open sea.
Odinshühnchen Zirkumpolar also breeds the 18-20 cm long one and 20-48 g heavy Odinshühnchen (Phalaropus lobatus) in the Arctic and spends the winter before South America's (Cocos-Islands, Galápagos-Inseln, Ecuador, North-Chile) West coast, in the southwestern Pacific (Japan, little one Sundainseln, New Guinea) and in the north and west-Pacific (golf of Aden, golf from Oman, northwest-India, East-Africa).
The known maximum-age of Wassertretern amounts to 5 years (Odinshühnchen).
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