In 1750 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the marbled godwit in the third volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds.

Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a preserved specimen that had been brought to London from the Hudson Bay area of Canada by James Isham.

Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Scolopax fedoa and cited Edwards' work.

[3] The marbled godwit is now placed in the genus Limosa that was introduced in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson.

The vast majority occur in mid-continental North America, followed by eastern Canada and the Alaska Peninsula, USA.

Species breeding in eastern Canada migrate across the US, and stopover at sites along the Gulf of California and Mexico.

[12] The Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge located at Great Salt Lake in Utah (USA), is one of the most popular stopover sites for godwits in the spring and fall.