The only thing that can be said with a fair degree of certainty is that according to the DNA sequence data one group of 5 species seems to stand out. These are wattle-less lapwings which were separated as "Anitibyx", "Belonopterus", "Hoplopterus" (in the narrow sense) and "Ptiloscelys". They are visually very dissimilar, but it is notable that their distribution forms a clean band through the tropical regions of the world except Australia; they might conceivably form a clade. The only species among them that is migratory is the Andean lapwing ("V. resplendens"), which as noted above cannot be allied with the truly migratory lapwings on these grounds. However, if these were to be split off, for one thing it is almost certain that other lineages would also require separation; the new genus' name would probably be "Hoplopterus", which is the longest- and most widely used alternative lapwing genus.