# Little Stint

*Calidris minuta*

Despite weighing about as much as a single AA battery, the Little Stint can migrate over 7,000 kilometers twice a year.

- **Taxonomy:** Animalia › Chordata › Aves › Charadriiformes › Scolopacidae › Calidris
- **IUCN Red List status:** Least Concern
- **Population trend:** decreasing
- **Biome:** wetland
- **Habitat:** Coastal mudflats, estuaries, saline lagoons, inland wetlands, and arctic tundra breeding grounds.
- **Diet:** Small invertebrates, aquatic insects, larvae, tiny mollusks, and marine worms probed from the mud.
- **Range:** Northern Europe, Siberia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Mediterranean Basin
- **Size:** Length: 12-14 cm; Wingspan: 28-31 cm; Weight: 17-30 g
- **Lifespan:** 4-7 years in the wild
- **Active:** diurnal
- **Threats:** Habitat loss and degradation of coastal wetlands, pollution, disturbance from human recreation, and climate change altering arctic nesting sites.
- **Safe to approach?:** Harmless. Observe these energetic waders from a safe distance of at least 30 meters to avoid disrupting their crucial feeding and resting cycles, especially during their grueling migrations. If they stop foraging and look alert, back away slowly.

## About

The little stint ( Calidris minuta ) (or Erolia minuta ), is a very small wader. It breeds in arctic Europe and Asia, and is a long-distance migrant, wintering south to Africa and south Asia. It occasionally is a vagrant to North America and to Australia. The genus name is from Ancient Greek kalidris or skalidris , a term used by Aristotle for some grey-coloured waterside birds. The specific minuta is Latin for "small.

## Sources

- Plate: https://gaia-dex.com/species/a78737d4-7c64-4da6-a014-821db4b49906
- iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/3838
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calidris minuta
- Conservation status: IUCN Red List category, as recorded by Gaia-Dex
- Photo: https://inaturalist-open-data.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/61212026/medium.jpg (Imran Shah, CC-BY-SA, via iNaturalist)

Habitat, diet, size and similar notes are AI-written summaries; check them against the linked sources before relying on them.