described the banded stilt as Himantopus palmatus in 1837, but recorded it as Cladorhynchus pectoralis in his 1865 work Handbook to the Birds of Australia. Gould also wrote that its distribution was unclear after it was first recorded at Rottnest Island though not elsewhere in Western Australia, and later in South Australia, until large numbers were seen by the British explorer Charles Sturt at Lepson's Lake north of Cooper Creek in what is now western Queensland. German naturalist Ludwig Reichenbach placed it in a new genus, naming it Xiphidiorhynchus pectoralis in 1845. Australian ornithologist Fred Lawson gave it the name Cladorhynchus australis in 1904. Gregory Mathews in his 1913 List of the Birds of Australia synonymised all subsequent genus and species names, using Cladorhynchus australis. He listed his subspecies rottnesti from 1913, though this has not been recognised since. Both Joseph G. Strauch in a 1978 study and Philip C. Chu in a 1995 re-analysis of bone and muscle characters found that the banded stilt was sister taxon to the avocets, with the stilts of the genus Himantopus an earlier offshoot. A 2004 study combining genetics and morphology reinforced its position as sister to the avocet lineage. English naturalist John Latham gave the bird the name "oriental avocet" in 1824, after Cuvier's description. "Banded stilt" has been designated the official name by the International Ornithological Committee (IOC). Other common names include "Rottnest snipe" and "bishop snipe". The Ngarrindjeri people of the Lower Murray River region in South Australia knew it as nilkani. Description The banded stilt is long and weighs , with a wingspan of . Adults in breeding plumage are predominantly white with black wings and a broad well-demarcated u-shaped chestnut band across the breast. The central part of the base of the upper tail is tinted a pale grey-brown. The slender bill is black, relatively straight, and twice as long as the head. The irises are dark brown and the legs and feet are a dark red-pink. The wings are long and slim and have eleven primary flight feathers, with the tenth being the longest. In flight, the wings are mostly black when seen from above, but have a white trailing edge from the tips of the inner primaries. From underneath, the wings are predominantly white with dark tips. White feathers on the head and neck have pale grey bases, which are normally hidden. Non-breeding plumage is similar,