Crested partridge

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Crested partridge
Crested Wood Partridge (Rollulus rouloul), male and female.jpg
Male and female
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Galliformes
Family: Phasianidae
Subfamily: Rollulinae
Genus: Rollulus
Bonnaterre, 1791
Species:
R. rouloul
Binomial name
Rollulus rouloul
(Scopoli, 1786) [2]
Synonyms

The crested partridge (Rollulus rouloul) also known as the crested wood partridge, roul-roul, red-crowned wood partridge, green wood quail or green wood partridge is a gamebird in the pheasant family Phasianidae of the order Galliformes, gallinaceous birds. It is the only member of the genus Rollulus.

Contents

This small partridge is a resident breeder in lowland rainforests in south Burma, south Thailand, Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo. Its nest is a ground scrape lined with leaves, which is concealed under a heap of leaf litter. Five or six white eggs are incubated for 18 days.

Unusually for a galliform species, the young are fed bill-to-bill by both parents instead of pecking from the ground, and although precocial, they roost in the nest while small.

The crested partridge is a rotund short-tailed bird, 25 cm (9.8 in) in length, with the male marginally larger than the female. Both sexes have a scarlet patch of bare skin around the eye and red legs without a spur or hind toe.

The male is metallic green above with glossy dark blue underparts and a brownish wing panel. The head is adorned with a tall red crest, a white forehead spot and black frontal bristles. The female has pea-green body plumage apart from the brown wing coverts. She has a slate-grey head with the bristles but no spot or crest. The bill is all-dark. Young birds are duller versions of the adult of the same sex. The song is a mournful whistled si-ul.

The crested partridge is usually seen singly or in pairs as it uses its feet to probe the forest floor for fruit, seeds and invertebrates. [3] When disturbed, it prefers to run but if necessary it flies a short distance on its rounded wings.

There is some concern about the effect of habitat destruction on this bird, especially with regard to logging. However, it seems to be somewhat more adaptable than other southeast Asian pheasants. As of 2021, the crested wood partridge is evaluated as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. [1] It is listed on Appendix III of CITES.

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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 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.

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The Malayan crested argus is a large and spectacular peafowl-like species of bird in the pheasant family with dark-brown-spotted black and buff plumage, a heavy pink bill, brown irises and blue skin around the eyes. The head has two crests; the hind crest, which extends down the occiput, is erected when alarmed and during intentional behaviors including pair bonding and courtship displays. The male has a broad and greatly elongated tail of twelve feathers. The tail covert of the male is the longest of any bird and is believed to contain the longest feathers to occur in a wild bird; the Reeves's pheasant has tail feathers of similar length but which are considerably narrower. The tail coverts measure up to 1.73 m (5.7 ft) in length, giving the bird a total length of 1.9–2.39 m (6.2–7.8 ft).

References

  1. 1 2 BirdLife International (2021). "Rollulus rouloul". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species . 2021: e.T22679106A196436384. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  2. Scopoli, 1786. Phasianus Rouloul (protonym). Delic. Florae Faunae Insubr., 2, p. 93. BHL. See also this pdf on the taxonomy
  3. ""Crested Wood Partridge Fact Sheet, Lincoln Park Zoo"". Archived from the original on 2012-03-29. Retrieved 2011-09-20.