| Phasianus Temporal range: Late Miocene-Recent, | |
|---|---|
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| Mongolian ringneck-type common pheasant (P. colchicus) cock | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Galliformes |
| Family: | Phasianidae |
| Tribe: | Phasianini |
| Genus: | Phasianus Linnaeus, 1758 |
| Type species | |
| Phasianus colchicus | |
| Species | |
The "typical" pheasant genus Phasianus in the family Phasianidae consists of two species. The genus name is Latin for pheasant.
The genus Phasianus was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae . [1] The genus name is Latin for "pheasant". The word is derived from the Ancient Greek φἀσιἀνος, phāsiānos, meaning "(bird) of the Phasis". The birds were found by the Argonauts on the banks of the River Phasis (now the Rioni) in Colchis on the east coast of the Black Sea (now western Georgia). [2] The type species of the genus is the common pheasant (Phasianus colchicus). [3]
The genus contains just two species. [4]
| Male | Female | Name | Common name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |  | Phasianus colchicus | common pheasant | Asia introduced to Europe, North America |
 |  | Phasianus versicolor | green pheasant | Japan |
The common pheasant (P. colchicus) has about 30 recognised subspecies forming five or six distinct groups; one is only found on the island of Taiwan off the southern coast of continental China, and the rest on the Asian mainland, reaching west to the Caucasus. Some subspecies have been introduced to Europe, North America and elsewhere, where they have hybridized and become well established.
The green pheasant (P. versicolor) is a species from Japan that which the fossil record suggest diverged about 2.0–1.8 million years ago from P. colchicus. [5]
Fossil remains of a Phasianus pheasant have been found in Late Miocene rocks in China. Additionally, fossil material belonging to a new species of Phasianus was described in 2020 as P. bulgaricus. The fossils were recovered from Miocene (Turolian) strata in Bulgaria. [6] Thus, like many other phasianid genera, this lineage dates back more than 5,000,000 years.
Phasianus pheasants are a harem polygynous species that are a highly sexually dimorphic genus, where males are large and elaborately ornamented with brightly coloured plumage, ear tufts, wattles, spurs, and long tails, compared to females that are non-ornamented with a dull cryptic plumage. [7] [8] [9] They have a polygynous mating system that is based upon males defending mating territories during breeding season in the early spring to control access to females with higher quality resources and defence against predation. [7] [10] [11] Females are free to move between different male territories, allowing them to benefit from direct or indirect benefits by choosing high quality mates and areas with better resources for their offspring. [11] Phasianus chicks are precocial so males provide no parental care for their young. [7] [10] [11]
A male's ornaments and weaponry are a symbol of status that allow females and rivals to examine a male's fitness and fighting ability. [7] During breeding season, males court females or challenge other males by enlarging their sexual traits, sloping their body towards their opponent or mate while spreading their tail and plumage, inflating the wattle and raising their ear tufts. [11] Older males usually have more exaggerated ornaments and weaponry than younger males, and are more likely to mate and control larger territories. [12] Submissive or juvenile males will conceal their wattle display from bigger males, reducing their chance of mating but minimizing their risk of injury by avoiding physical conflict with a more dominant male. [11] The general brightness of the plumage may also be used to identify healthy males from unhealthy males. [7] Only in cases where males exhibit similar characteristics, do males attack one another. [13]
To display these traits throughout breeding season entails a physiological cost, leading to an endurance rivalry between males, where only males that can afford to display these breeding rituals will pass on their genes to their offspring. [11] [13] An example of this can be seen in the length of a male's spur and the wattle display that is enlarged during sexual displays; both are considered costly as they are highly dependent on nutrition and testosterone levels. [8] [9] [14] [15] [16] Females generally prefer brighter wattles and longer spurs. [8] The brightness in the wattle comes from storing a carotenoid pigment known as astaxanthin in their diet that is inhibited by an infestation of parasites. [8] Only healthy individuals in good physical condition can afford to fully express bigger and brighter wattles, which may also be associated with disease resistance. [8] [16] Spurs function not only as weapons in combat between males but also as an important cue in female choice as the length of the spur signifies the male's phenotypic condition (age, weight, size) and viability. [10] [14] Studies have found that longer spurs resulted in bigger harem sizes compared to males with shorter spurs. [15]
Females will benefit from choosing males with higher expressed ornaments, as her offspring will also inherit these genes, increasing their survival and chance for reproduction (sexy son hypothesis). [11]
Sexual selection is a mode of natural selection in which members of one biological sex choose mates of the other sex to mate with, and compete with members of the same sex for access to members of the opposite sex. These two forms of selection mean that some individuals have greater reproductive success than others within a population, for example because they are more attractive or prefer more attractive partners to produce offspring. Successful males benefit from frequent mating and monopolizing access to one or more fertile females. Females can maximise the return on the energy they invest in reproduction by selecting and mating with the best males.
Pheasants are birds of several genera within the family Phasianidae in the order Galliformes. Although they can be found all over the world in introduced populations, the pheasant genera native range is restricted to Eurasia. The classification "pheasant" is paraphyletic, as birds referred to as pheasants are included within both the subfamilies Phasianinae and Pavoninae, and in many cases are more closely related to smaller phasianids, grouse, and turkey than to other pheasants.
Peafowl is a common name for two bird species of the genus Pavo and one species of the closely related genus Afropavo within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae. Male peafowl are referred to as peacocks, and female peafowl are referred to as peahens.
The common pheasant is a bird in the pheasant family (Phasianidae). The genus name comes from Latin phasianus, "pheasant". The species name colchicus is Latin for "of Colchis", a country on the Black Sea where pheasants became known to Europeans. Although Phasianus was previously thought to be closely related to the genus Gallus, the genus of junglefowl and domesticated chickens, recent studies show that they are in different subfamilies, having diverged over 20 million years ago.
Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecious species, which consist of most animals and some plants. Differences may include secondary sex characteristics, size, weight, color, markings, or behavioral or cognitive traits. Male-male reproductive competition has evolved a diverse array of sexually dimorphic traits. Aggressive utility traits such as "battle" teeth and blunt heads reinforced as battering rams are used as weapons in aggressive interactions between rivals. Passive displays such as ornamental feathering or song-calling have also evolved mainly through sexual selection. These differences may be subtle or exaggerated and may be subjected to sexual selection and natural selection. The opposite of dimorphism is monomorphism, when both biological sexes are phenotypically indistinguishable from each other.
Bowerbirds make up the bird family Ptilonorhynchidae. They are renowned for their unique courtship behaviour, where males build a structure and decorate it with sticks and brightly coloured objects in an attempt to attract a mate.
The green pheasant, also known as the Japanese green pheasant, is an omnivorous bird native to the Japanese archipelago, to which it is endemic. Some taxonomic authorities consider it a subspecies of the common pheasant, Phasianus colchicus. It is the national bird of Japan.
The ruff is a medium-sized wading bird that breeds in marshes and wet meadows across northern Eurasia. This highly gregarious sandpiper is migratory and sometimes forms huge flocks in its winter grounds, which include southern and western Europe, Africa, southern Asia and Australia.
The bronze-winged jacana is a wader in the family Jacanidae. It is found across South and Southeast Asia and is the sole species in the genus Metopidius. Like other jacanas it forages on lilies and other floating aquatic vegetation, the long feet spreading out its weight and preventing sinking. The sexes are alike but females are slightly larger and are polyandrous, maintaining a harem of males during the breeding season in the monsoon rains. Males maintain territories, with one male in the harem chosen to incubate the eggs and take care of the young. When threatened, young chicks may be carried to safety by the male under his wings.
The blood pheasant or blood partridge is the only species in genus Ithaginis of the pheasant family. It is a relatively small, short-tailed pheasant that is widespread and is fairly common in eastern Himalayas, ranging across India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, and northern Myanmar. Since the trend of the population appears to be slowly decreasing, the species has been evaluated as of least concern on the IUCN Red List in 2009.
The crested auklet is a small seabird of the family Alcidae, distributed throughout the northern Pacific and the Bering Sea. The species feeds by diving in deep waters, eating krill and a variety of small marine animals. It nests in dense colonies of up to 1 million individuals in the Bering Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk. It often breeds in mixed-species colonies with the least auklet, a smaller congener.
Bulwer's pheasant, also known as Bulwer's wattled pheasant, the wattled pheasant or the white-tailed wattled pheasant, is a Southeast Asian bird in the family Phasianidae endemic to the forests of Borneo. It is currently listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN.
The Guianan cock-of-the-rock is a species of cotinga, a passerine bird from South America. It is about 30 cm (12 in) in length and weighs about 200 to 220 g. It is found in tropical rainforests, near its preferred habitat of rocky outcrops. The female's plumage is brownish/dark smokey grey in colour, and generally less noticeable than the males because of their nesting work in rocky areas. The male's feathers are a bright orange. Both have a heavy body, broad-based bill and wear a remarkable half-moon crest on the head. It is one of two species of the genus Rupicola, the other being the Andean cock-of-the-rock. The Guianan cock-of-the-rock lives across the forested region of northeastern South America. Its diet consists mostly of fruit, but they sometimes feast on small snakes and lizards.
The genus Syrmaticus contains the five species of long-tailed pheasants. The males have short spurs and usually red facial wattles, but otherwise differ wildly in appearance. The hens (females) and chicks of all the species have a rather conservative and plesiomorphic drab brown color pattern. 5 species are generally accepted in this genus.
Cervus is a genus of deer that primarily are native to Eurasia, although one species occurs in northern Africa and another in North America. In addition to the species presently placed in this genus, it has included a whole range of other species now commonly placed in other genera. Additionally, the species-level taxonomy is in a state of flux.
Mate choice is one of the primary mechanisms under which evolution can occur. It is characterized by a "selective response by animals to particular stimuli" which can be observed as behavior. In other words, before an animal engages with a potential mate, they first evaluate various aspects of that mate which are indicative of quality—such as the resources or phenotypes they have—and evaluate whether or not those particular trait(s) are somehow beneficial to them. The evaluation will then incur a response of some sort.
A wattle is a fleshy caruncle hanging from various parts of the head or neck in several groups of birds and mammals. Caruncles in birds include those found on the face, wattles, dewlaps, snoods, and earlobes. Wattles are generally paired structures, but may occur as a single structure when it is sometimes known as a dewlap. Wattles are frequently organs of sexual dimorphism. In some birds, caruncles are erectile tissue and may or may not have a feather covering.
A courtship display is a set of display behaviors in which an animal, usually a male, attempts to attract a mate; the mate exercises choice, so sexual selection acts on the display. These behaviors often include ritualized movement ("dances"), vocalizations, mechanical sound production, or displays of beauty, strength, or agonistic ability.
A biological ornament is a characteristic of an animal that appears to serve a decorative function rather than a utilitarian function. Many are secondary sexual characteristics, and others appear on young birds during the period when they are dependent on being fed by their parents. Ornaments are used in displays to attract mates, which may lead to the evolutionary process known as sexual selection. An animal may shake, lengthen, or spread out its ornament in order to get the attention of the opposite sex, which will in turn choose the most attractive one with which to mate. Ornaments are most often observed in males, and choosing an extravagantly ornamented male benefits females as the genes that produce the ornament will be passed on to her offspring, increasing their own reproductive fitness. As Ronald Fisher noted, the male offspring will inherit the ornament while the female offspring will inherit the preference for said ornament, which can lead to a positive feedback loop known as a Fisherian runaway. These structures serve as cues to animal sexual behaviour, that is, they are sensory signals that affect mating responses. Therefore, ornamental traits are often selected by mate choice.
Sexual selection in birds concerns how birds have evolved a variety of mating behaviors, with the peacock tail being perhaps the most famous example of sexual selection and the Fisherian runaway. Commonly occurring sexual dimorphisms such as size and color differences are energetically costly attributes that signal competitive breeding situations. Many types of avian sexual selection have been identified; intersexual selection, also known as female choice; and intrasexual competition, where individuals of the more abundant sex compete with each other for the privilege to mate. Sexually selected traits often evolve to become more pronounced in competitive breeding situations until the trait begins to limit the individual's fitness. Conflicts between an individual fitness and signaling adaptations ensure that sexually selected ornaments such as plumage coloration and courtship behavior are "honest" traits. Signals must be costly to ensure that only good-quality individuals can present these exaggerated sexual ornaments and behaviors.
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