[2][3] The specific leschenaultii commemorates the French botanist Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour.

This species is strongly migratory, wintering on sandy beaches in East Africa, South Asia and Australasia.

The problem is compounded in that the southwest Asian subspecies of the greater is the most similar to the other two species in its smaller bill.

Its food consists of insects, crustaceans and annelid worms, which are obtained by a run-and-pause technique, rather than the steady probing of some other wader groups.

[citation needed] The greater sand plover is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.