Ruffled guinea fowl

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Ruffled guinea fowl
Ruffled Guinea Fowl, South Africa

Ruffled Guinea Fowl, South Africa

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Chicken birds (Galliformes)
Family : Guinea fowl (Numididae)
Genre : Guttera
Type : Ruffled guinea fowl
Scientific name
Guttera pucherani
( Hartlaub , 1860)
Head study of the nominate form
Head study of the Zambezi Crested Guinea Fowl

The Crested guinea fowl ( Guttera pucherani ) is a bird art from the family of guinea fowl . The shy, medium-sized guinea fowl is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa . The name is derived from the dense black forehead and parapet made of upright feathers that sit on a skin cushion made of fatty connective tissue. The remaining head parts and the upper neck are bare except for the few bristle feathers on the chin region that are found in some subspecies. Several subspecies are distinguished.

The population of the crested guinea fowl was classified in the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species in 2016 as “ Least Concern (LC) ” = “not endangered”.

description

The nominate form of the crinkled guinea fowl reaches a body length of 48 to 50 cm. It is one of the medium-sized guinea fowl species and is about the size of a pheasant . The weight of the males is between 750 and 1573 g. with an average of 1149 grams.

A sexual dimorphism is not very pronounced, but males are slightly larger. The iris is brown. The legs and feet are dark brown to blackish, of medium length and do not have a spur. The beak is bluish gray and brightens towards the tip.

Adult birds wear a characteristic hood made of stiff, black, up to 2.6 cm long feathers on the vertex - a characteristic species feature that makes the species at best confused with the closely related plain-hooded guinea fowl . The rest of the head is featherless except for the neck and in the nominate form is cobalt blue with bright red sides of the head and a bright red chin.

The body plumage is black and relatively densely covered with fine, bluish-white dots. The outer seams of the outer arm wings are creamy white, the hand wings are isabel gray. The short, inconspicuous tail is also spotted white. The wings are dark brown, the arm wings a little darker and have inconspicuous, white spots. The outer three arm wings show white outer flags that form a stripe on the closed wing.

In the youth dress, the head and neck are still covered by black dunes. The hood springs are shorter. The top and wing feathers are gray with blackish banding. The breast plumage is black-gray and has fine white dots and bands.

voice

The Ruffled Guinea Fowl is less shouting than the Helmet Guinea Fowl . A sharp krek is one of the typical sounds . Troops looking for food keep in touch with one another with low chuk sounds.

Subspecies and their respective distribution area

So-called Kenya crested guinea fowl, the nominate form of the crinkled guinea fowl of the nominate form. Photo from eastern Kenya

The number of subspecies was discussed for a long time. Up to 13 different subspecies have been distinguished for this guinea fowl.

Currently there is broad agreement to assign the species five subspecies. The subspecies differ most noticeably in the coloration of the feathered neck and head areas. Their color ranges from white to yellow to red as in the nominate form.

The distribution area of ​​the nominate form is East Africa and extends there from Somalia to Tanzania. It was previously classified as a monotypical species and accordingly listed as Guttera pucherani . The subspecies attributed to him today were listed as Guttera edouardi . A distinction is made in detail:

  • G. p. pucherani (Hartlaub, 1861) - Kenya crested guinea fowl or Pucheran crested guinea fowl - Somalia to Tanzania , Zanzibar and Tumbatu . This is the nominate form described above, which is characterized by cobalt blue and red, featherless head sections.
  • G. p. barbata ( Ghigi , 1905) - Malawi crested guinea fowl - Southeast Tanzania to the east of Mozambique and Malawi . In this subspecies, the cheeks, back of the head and throat are slate-colored, the neck is dark blue. In most individuals the chin is sparse with black bristle-like feather ends. The black neck fletching has no pearl spots and is slightly maroon. It extends to the middle of the chest.
  • G. p. edouardi ( Hartlaub , 1867) - Zambezi crested guinea fowl - east from Zambia to Mozambique and east from South Africa. The back of the head, the back of the neck, the face and the throat are featherless and bluish slate gray. They have a wide, white-yellow band of skin across the neck and reach just below the eyes. The chin region is sparsely covered with black brush feathers. A chestnut to black tinted feather neck collar that lacks the pearl pattern. extends to the front chest.
  • G. p. sclateri ( Reichenow , 1898) - Sclater-crested guinea fowl - Northwest Cameroon . The hood feathers of this subspecies are always short and straight in the forehead region. At the top they reach a length of up to 1.9 centimeters. They are less curled than other subspecies and hang slightly behind. The featherless head and neck areas on the chin and throat are red, otherwise gray-blue. The neck collar is black.
  • G. p. verreauxi ( Elliot , 1870) - West African crested guinea fowl - Guinea-Bissau to the west of Kenya , Angola and Zambia . The chin, throat and fore neck are carmine red, the rest of the featherless parts are dark steel blue, and even blackish around the eyes. A wide under-neck collar and the head region are black.

Way of life and food

So-called Zambezi crested guinea fowl, one of the subspecies of the crested guinea fowl, recorded in South Africa

The diet of the crested guinea fowl consists of seeds, fruits, leaves and invertebrates . They also take on small snail shells as a substitute for gastroliths .

Ruffled guinea fowl are very social birds that live together in flocks for most of the year. Such troops usually contain between 10 and 30 animals, in rare cases such troops can also contain 50 guinea fowl. These troops break up at the beginning of the breeding season.

They look for food at the edges of the forest or in clearings and can also occasionally be seen along roads that lead through wooded areas. They are very shy birds, whose presence can often only be determined through the feather finds on forest trails. They start looking for food at dawn and scrape through the forest floor. They often follow monkeys looking for food in the treetops and eat the fruits that they drop to the ground. During the hottest noon hours they rest in the thick undergrowth. During this time, however, they also take dust baths or look for a nearby water point. At dusk they leave their food trees and grow in tall trees. They usually always use the same or a nearby tree. If they are disturbed by potential predators , they seek protection in dense treetops and remain motionless there until the danger is over.

Reproduction

Ruffled guinea fowl are monogamous and raise one brood annually. The nest is a shallow hollow in the ground between dry leaves in dense undergrowth. The eggs are brownish-pink when they are laid, but they get dirty in the nest so quickly that they appear spotted. Clutches usually contain four or five eggs, rarely up to eight. Clutches with 10 to 14 eggs have already been observed. Such clutch sizes are probably due to the fact that several females have laid eggs in one nest.

The eggs are incubated by the female alone for 23 days. Both parent birds lead the young birds. The parent birds and their young join other curled-up guinea fowl, so that larger flocks are created.

attitude

Zambezi crested guinea fowl

Ruffled guinea fowl have long been kept in zoological gardens.

  • The West African crested guinea fowl was first kept by the London Zoo in 1865 with four specimens . Further imports followed in the following years, on July 28th 1876 the offspring in this zoo succeeded for the first time.
  • The date of the first introduction of the nominate form to Europe is not certain. There is evidence that it was kept from July 1879, but there are indications that this subspecies was shown there before. The first European breeding took place in England in 1912.
  • The first import of the Malawi crested guinea fowl took place in 1912 by the Berlin zoo .
  • The first import of a Sclater-hooded guinea fowl took place in 1938 by Lutz Heck . The guinea fowl was kept in the Berlin zoo. In the London Zoo, a guinea fowl of this subspecies imported in 1948 survived until 1964, reaching an age of at least 16 years.
  • The Berlin Zoo showed Zambezi Crested Guinea Fowl between 1906 and 1908. The species is generally rarely brought to Europe.

Trivia

The specific epithet pucherani honors the French zoologist Jacques Pucheran . The Sclater crested guinea fowl is reminiscent of the British ornithologist Philip Lutley Sclater . The subspecies name verrauxi for the West African crested guinea fowl honors either the French scientist Édouard Verreaux (1810–1868) or his brother Jules Verreaux , a bird and plant scientist .

literature

Web links

Commons : Ruffled Guinea Fowl ( Guttera pucherani )  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

Single receipts

  1. ↑ Guttera pucherani in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2016 Posted by: BirdLife International, 2016. Retrieved on October 10, 2017th
  2. ↑ Madge, McGowan and Kirwan: Pheasants, Partridges and Grouse. P. 350.
  3. ^ Voice of the Ruffled Guinea Fowl on Xeno-Canto , accessed September 11, 2016.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Madge, McGowan and Kirwan: Pheasants, Partridges and Grouse. P. 351.
  5. ↑ Del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A .; Sargatal, J. (2001) Handbook of the Birds of the World Volume 2: New World Vultures to Guineafowl . Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. ISBN 84-87334-15-6
  6. ↑ a b Raethel: Hühnervögel der Welt , p. 728.
  7. ↑ Raethel: Hühnervögel der Welt , p. 729.
  8. ↑ a b c Raethel: Hühnervögel der Welt , p. 726.
  9. ↑ Raethel: Hühnervögel der Welt , p. 725.
  10. ↑ a b Raethel: Hühnervögel der Welt , p. 730.
  11. ↑ Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins: Whose Bird? Men and Women Commemorated in the Common Names of Birds . Christopher Helm, London 2003, ISBN 0-7136-6647-1 , pp. 205 .