| Coturnix | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Harlequin quail, C. delegorguei | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Galliformes |
| Family: | Phasianidae |
| Tribe: | Coturnicini |
| Genus: | Coturnix Garsault, 1764 |
| Type species | |
| Tetrao coturnix Linnaeus, 1758 | |
| Species | |
See text | |
Coturnix is a genus of five extant species and five to eight known extinct species of Old World quail. [1]
These species are distributed throughout Africa, Eurasia, Australia, and formerly New Zealand. An extinct radiation of flightless, insular species is known through fossil remains from Macaronesia, which were likely wiped out by human arrival.
Quail of Coturnix live in pairs or small social groups and form larger groups during migration. Not all species migrate, but most are capable of extremely rapid, upward flight to escape from danger. Unlike related genera, Old World quail do not perch in trees. They devote much of their time to scratching and foraging for seeds and invertebrates on the ground. Typical habitats are dense vegetation such as grasslands, bushes alongside rivers and cereal fields. They are heavily predated upon by diurnal hawks.
The genus Coturnix was introduced in 1764 by the French naturalist François Alexandre Pierre de Garsault. The type species is the common quail (Coturnix coturnix). [2] [3] The genus name is the Latin for the common quail. [4] The genus contains six species, of which one, the New Zealand quail (Coturnix novaezelandiae), is now extinct but was described from a living specimen. [5] The brown quail (S. ypsilophora), king quail (S. chinensis) and blue quail (S. adansonii), were formerly classified in this genus, but were later reclassified into Synoicus . [6]
The quails are related to the African spurfowl, jungle bush quail, snowcocks and rock partridges, which together with the species of Coturnix, Synoicus , and a few others make up a clade called Coturnicini, a tribe within the subfamily Pavoninae.
| Extant and recently extinct species | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Common and binomial names | Image | Description | Range |
| Rain quail (Coturnix coromandelica) |  | The Indian subcontinent, especially the Indus valley of central Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan; winter range extends to Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam | |
| Harlequin quail (Coturnix delegorguei) |  | Africa and the Arabian Peninsula | |
| Common quail (Coturnix coturnix) |  | Breeding range includes most of Europe and western Asia; winter in the Indian subcontinent and Africa. Some subspecies breed in sub-Saharan Africa | |
| Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) |  | Typically breed in East Asia and winter in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and southern China, but have been reported breeding in Turkey and wintering across southern Africa | |
| †New Zealand quail (Coturnix novaezelandiae) |  | (extinct) | New Zealand |
| Stubble quail (Coturnix pectoralis) |  | Australia, especially coastal New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. Extirpated from Tasmania | |
| Late Quaternary fossil species | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Common and binomial names | Image | Description | Range |
| †Canary Islands quail (Coturnix gomerae) |  | El Hierro, La Palma, Tenerife and Fuerteventura, Canary Islands | |
| †Porto Santo quail (Coturnix alabrevis) [1] | Porto Santo Island, Madeira | ||
| †Cape Verde quail (Coturnix centensis) [1] | Cape Verde | ||
| †Madeiran quail (Coturnix lignorum) [1] | Madeira Island, Madeira | ||
Fragmentary remains representing three other Coturnix species were also recovered from Macaronesia: Coturnix sp. A from Bugio Island in Madeira, Coturnix sp. B from Santa Maria in the Azores (likely representing another extinct island endemic species) and Coturnix sp. C from Graciosa in the Azores. Due to their fragmentary nature, it is uncertain whether these represented their own species or were synonymous with one of the already-described extinct Coturnix species or the extant common quail (Coturnix coturnix), which also has fossil remains known from Macaronesia and is still present there. [1]
A fossil species from the Late Oligocene - Late Miocene of SW and Central Europe was described as Coturnix gallica. Another, C. donnezani, was widespread in Early Pliocene to Early Pleistocene Europe. [7]
Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally placed in the order Galliformes. The collective noun for a group of quail is a flock, covey, or bevy.
Swans are birds of the genus Cygnus within the family Anatidae. The swans' closest relatives include the geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae.
Galliformes is an order of heavy-bodied ground-feeding birds that includes turkeys, chickens, quail, and other landfowl. Gallinaceous birds, as they are called, are important in their ecosystems as seed dispersers and predators, and are often reared by humans for their meat and eggs, or hunted as game birds.
The American horned owls and the Old World eagle-owls make up the genus Bubo, at least as traditionally described. The genus name Bubo is Latin for owl.
The Phasianidae are a family of heavy, ground-living birds, which includes pheasants, partridges, junglefowl, chickens, turkeys, Old World quail, and peafowl. The family includes many of the most popular gamebirds. The family is a large one and includes 185 species divided into 54 genera. It was formerly broken up into two subfamilies, the Phasianinae and the Perdicinae. However, this treatment is now known to be paraphyletic and polyphyletic, respectively, and more recent evidence supports breaking it up into two subfamilies: Rollulinae and Phasianinae, with the latter containing multiple tribes within two clades. The New World quail (Odontophoridae) and guineafowl (Numididae) were formerly sometimes included in this family, but are now typically placed in families of their own; conversely, grouse and turkeys, formerly often treated as distinct families, are now known to be deeply nested within Phasianidae, so they are now included in the present family.
Junglefowl are the only four living species of bird from the genus Gallus in the bird order Galliformes, and occur in parts of South and Southeast Asia. One of the species in this genus, the red junglefowl, is of historical importance as the direct ancestor of the domestic chicken, although the grey junglefowl, Sri Lankan junglefowl and green junglefowl are likely to have also been involved. The Sri Lankan junglefowl is the national bird of Sri Lanka. They diverged from their common ancestor about 4–6 million years ago. Although originating in Asia, remains of junglefowl bones have also been found in regions of Chile, which date back to 1321–1407 CE, providing evidence of possible Polynesian migration through the Pacific Ocean.
The common quail, or European quail, is a small ground-nesting game bird in the pheasant family Phasianidae. It is mainly migratory, breeding in the western Palearctic and wintering in Africa and southern India.
Alectoris is a genus of partridges in the family Phasianidae, closely related to Old World quail, snowcocks (Tetraogallus), partridge-francolins (Pternistis), bush quail (Perdicula), and sand and see-see partridges (Ammoperdix). Members of the genus are known collectively as rock partridges. The genus name is derived from the Ancient Greek: αλέκτωρ, romanized: alektoris, meaning "chicken" or "farmyard fowl".
The king quail, also known as the blue-breasted quail, Asian blue quail, Chinese painted quail, or Chung-Chi, is a species of Old World quail in the family Phasianidae. This species is the smallest "true quail", ranging in the wild from southern China, South and Southeast Asia to Oceania, south to southeastern Australia, with 9 different subspecies. A failed attempt was made to introduce this species to New Zealand by the Otago Acclimatisation Society in the late 1890s. It is quite common in aviculture worldwide, where it is sometimes misleadingly known as the "button quail", which is the name of an only very distantly related family of birds, the buttonquails.
The rain quail or black-breasted quail is a species of quail found in the Indian Sub-continent and South-east Asia; its range including Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.
The brown quail, also known as the swamp quail, silver quail and Tasmanian quail, is an Australasian true quail of the family Phasianidae. It is a small, ground-dwelling bird and is native to mainland Australia, Tasmania and Papua New Guinea and has been introduced to New Zealand and Fiji. Widespread and common throughout its large range, the brown quail is evaluated as being of "least concern" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
The New Zealand quail, or koreke in Māori, is an extinct quail species endemic to New Zealand. The male and female were similar, except the female was lighter. The first scientist to describe it was Sir Joseph Banks when he visited New Zealand on James Cook's first voyage. Terrestrial and temperate, this species inhabited lowland tussock grassland and open fernlands. The first specimen to be obtained by a European was collected in 1827 by Jean René Constant Quoy and Joseph Paul Gaimard on Dumont D'Urville's voyage. It most likely went extinct due to diseases from introduced game birds.
The Japanese quail, also known as the coturnix quail, is a species of Old World quail found in East Asia. First considered a subspecies of the common quail, it is now considered as a separate species. The Japanese quail has played an active role in the lives of humanity since the 12th century, and continues to play major roles in industry and scientific research. Where it is found, the species is abundant across most of its range. Currently, there are a few true breeding mutations of the Japanese quail. The varieties currently found in the United States include Pharaoh, Italian, Manchurian, Tibetan, Rosetta, along with the following mutations: sex-linked brown, fee, roux, silver, andalusian, blue/blau, white winged pied, progressive pied, albino, calico, sparkly, as well as non-color mutations such as celadon.
Rupicapra is a genus of goat-antelope called the chamois. They belong to the bovine family of hoofed mammals, the Bovidae.
The blue quail or African blue quail is a species of bird in the family Phasianidae found in sub-Saharan Africa.
Perdicinae is a polyphyletic former subfamily of birds in the pheasant family, Phasianidae, regrouping the partridges, Old World quails, and francolins. Although this subfamily was considered monophyletic and separated from the pheasants, tragopans, junglefowls, and peafowls (Phasianinae) till the early 1990s, molecular phylogenies have shown that these two subfamilies actually constitute only one lineage. For example, some partridges are more closely affiliated to pheasants, whereas Old World quails and partridges from the Alectoris genus are closer to junglefowls. Due to this, the subfamily Perdicinae is no longer recognized by the International Ornithological Congress, with the species being split among 3 subfamilies.
Old World quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds in the tribe Coturnicini of the pheasant family Phasianidae. Although all species commonly referred to as "Old World quail" are in the same tribe, they are paraphyletic with respect to the other members of the tribe, such as Alectoris, Tetraogallus, Ammoperdix, Margaroperdix, and Pternistis.
Synoicus is a genus of 4 species of Old World quail.
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