Edward's Pheasant

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Edward's Pheasant
Edward's Pheasant's Rooster

Edward's Pheasant's Rooster

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Chicken birds (Galliformes)
Family : Pheasants (Phasianidae)
Genre : Chicken Pheasants ( Lophura )
Type : Edward's Pheasant
Scientific name
Lophura edwardsi
( Oustalet , 1896)

The Edwards's Pheasant ( Lophura edwardsi ) is a Hühnervogel art from the family of pheasant-like . The rare species is endemic to central Vietnam and is classified as endangered by the IUCN because its habitat is threatened by deforestation.

Sometimes the also very rare Vietnam pheasant ( Lophura hatinhensis ) is regarded as a subspecies of the Edward's pheasant. The imperial pheasant ( Lophura imperialis ) described by Jean Théodore Delacour and Pierre Charles Edmond Jabouille in 1924 is, as could be proven in 2003 by DNA examinations and breeding experiments, a cross between Edwards and silver pheasants .

description

Hen of Edward's Pheasant

The rooster of this species reaches between 58 and 65 cm body length, of which the tail accounts for between 24 and 26 cm. The wing length is between 22 and 24 cm. In the hen, the latter is 21 to 22 cm, the tail length 20 to 22 cm.

The rooster wears a short, openable hood, which is predominantly white and sometimes mixed with black feathers. The featherless area around the eye is bright red with indicated lobes. The beak is whitish green and shows a blackish base. The iris is red-brown. The body fletching is predominantly dark blue with broad, silky blue shining hems. The feathers on the shoulders, lower back and rump as well as the upper tail covers also show a velvet black subterminal tape, the distal end of which is straight. The hems of the elytra are dark turquoise. The wings are blue and the wings are black-brown. The relatively short, straight tail is solid blue. The middle pair of control springs is not elongated as is the case with other species of the genus, but as long as the rest of the joint and rounded at the end. The legs are crimson.

The hen lacks the bonnet, the red, featherless eye area is less extensive than the rooster. The beak is horn-brown, the iris brown. Hens are predominantly chestnut-colored, with the head a bit greyish and the neck a bit reddish. The entire plumage bears a fine, dark pattern of waves and scribbles. In contrast to the black of the other tail feathers, the middle three show a dark brown. The legs are scarlet.

The youth dress is similar to that of the hen. Young hens sometimes have black spots on the neck, shoulders and upper wing-coverts, the young cocks sometimes already show areas that resemble the adult dress .

voice

The alarm call is a deep and throaty uk uk uk uk uk .

Distribution and existence

The Edward's Pheasant is endemic to central Vietnam. In historical times, at least eight occurrences were known in the provinces of Quảng Trị and Thừa Thiên-Huế . The species was described there as quite common. Today many areas where the species was found are completely deforested. Current evidence comes from trappers from the planned Phong Dien and Dakrong reserves . Further observations come from the west of Quảng Ninh , from Quảng Bình and from the vicinity of the Bach Ma National Park in Lộc Điền .

Presumably the populations have decreased significantly, in 1994 the total population was estimated at less than 1000 birds.

Way of life

Edward's Pheasant Egg

The Edward's Pheasant occurs in the rainforests of the plains, where it prefers to live in dense undergrowth with many creepers. The information about the altitude distribution is contradicting, apparently there is no evidence above 300 m altitude, although suitable habitats exist up to 600 or even 900 m altitude. Current evidence comes from the lowlands, where there was selective logging.

The clutch consists of 4 to 7 cream-colored to beige eggs of 43 × 36 mm in size. They are incubated for 21 days.

Systematics

In 1924 Jean Théodore Delacour and Pierre Jabouille described a pheasant form as the imperial pheasant ( Lophura imperialis ), of which a living couple had been given to them by missionaries in Annam . Other captured birds died on the journey to France, but the first pair survived and successfully reproduced in captivity. Offspring of this breed survived until the 1970s, but no further specimens could be discovered in the wild. The species was therefore considered a mystery for a long time.

In 1990 another specimen was caught in a trap and at the end of the 1990s the first doubts about the species status of this form arose. As early as 1961, when the last hen of the French breeding line had died and next to a pure-bred rooster only its offspring with a hen of the silver pheasant existed, backcrossing attempts with Swinhoefasans and Caliphasans of the subspecies L. l. horsfieldii , which finally succeeded in regaining the imperial pheasant phenotype . It was finally proven in 2003 on the basis of DNA examinations and breeding experiments that the emperor pheasant is an occasional crossing of the silver pheasant with the Edward pheasant or the Vietnam pheasant. The latter species is often viewed as a subspecies of the Edward's Pheasant.

The rooster of this hybrid ( Lophura × imperialis ) has the appearance of broad, shimmering blue hems of the feathers, which are blue-black at the base, and are generally dark blue in color. The short hood is blue-black, the middle pair of control springs is clearly elongated, curved and pointed. The hen wears an erectable hood on her gray-brown head. The upper side is chestnut colored with light shafts and clear scribbling, the lower side is gray-brown. The control feathers are black except for the chestnut brown, black scribbled middle pair. The black hand wings have a light gray wave drawing in the middle. In both sexes, the feathered eye area is red, the iris reddish orange and the beak light yellow-green with a blackish base. The legs are crimson.

The hybridization with the silver pheasant probably represents a further population risk for the extremely rare species Edward's pheasant and Vietnamese pheasant.

literature

  • Heinz-Sigurd Raethel : Chicken birds of the world. Verlag J. Neumann-Neudamm GmbH & Co. KG, Melsungen 1988, ISBN 3-7888-0440-8 .
  • A. Hennache, P. Rasmussen, V. Lucchini, S. Rimondi, E. Randi: Hybrid origin of the imperial pheasant Lophura imperialis (Delacour and Jabouille, 1924) demonstrated by morphology, hybrid experiments, and DNA analyzes , Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, Vol. 80/4, December 2003, pp. 573-600

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ International Bird Collection, p. Web links
  2. ↑ a b c d e BirdLife species factsheet, s. Web links
  3. ↑ Raethel, p. 551, s. Literature and BirdLife species factsheet, s. Web links
  4. ↑ a b c Raethel, p. 552f, s. literature
  5. ↑ a b c Hennache et al., S. literature

Web links

Commons : Edward's Pheasant  - Collection of images, videos and audio files