White-tailed gloss pheasant

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White-tailed gloss pheasant
White-tailed gloss pheasant, female

White-tailed gloss pheasant, female

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Chicken birds (Galliformes)
Family : Pheasants (Phasianidae)
Genre : Glossy Pheasants ( Lophophorus )
Type : White-tailed gloss pheasant
Scientific name
Lophophorus sclateri
Jerdon , 1870

The glossy white-tailed pheasant ( Lophophorus sclateri ) is a species of bird from the genus of the glossy pheasant . It was named after the English zoologist Philip Lutley Sclater .

description

Illustration of a male by John Gerrard Keulemans , 1870

The rooster of the glossy white-tailed pheasant reaches a length of 68 centimeters. The underside is iridescent purple-green. The nape of the neck is copper in color and the throat is purple black. The skull is characterized by short, wavy, metallic blue-green feathers. The beak is dirty white. The back, the rump and the under tail-coverts are white. The tail feathers are white with a maroon band in the middle. The hen becomes 63 centimeters long. Her hood is missing. The chin and throat are white. The back, shoulders and feathers are brown and leather-colored striped. The underside is pale brown with pale yellow-brown undulating banding. The beak is light yellow. The white tail has six or seven brown bands. The skin of the face is light blue in both sexes, the legs light green and the iris is dark brown. The L. s. Breed was only discovered in 2004 in Arunachal Pradesh . arunachalensis lacks the brown banding on the tail.

distribution

The glossy white-tailed pheasant comes from Arunachal Pradesh in India east through northern Myanmar to southeastern Tibet and western Yunnan in China .

habitat

The glossy white-tailed pheasant lives in coniferous forests with bamboo undergrowth , subalpine zones with rhododendron vegetation, areas with azalea forests, medlars , junipers and open grasslands, as well as rocky, steep slopes. In summer it is at altitudes of 3,000 to 4,200 m above sea level. M. to be found, in winter it comes down to 2,000 m.

Way of life

The glossy white-tailed pheasant lives in pairs during the breeding season in spring, but is very sociable in winter. Little is known about its breeding behavior. Clutches were found in April, May and June. Little is known about eating habits either. In addition to knotweed seeds and thistle heads , the diet can consist of the rhizomes of ferns , bamboo leaves and the bulbs of fire flasks ( arisaema ).

Danger

Deforestation and overhunting are the greatest threats to the white-tailed gloss pheasant. It is heavily hunted for its tasty meat, and fans and ornaments are made from its white tail feathers in India . The deforestation has restricted its habitat in China. The white-tailed pheasant is in Appendix I of the Washington Convention on Endangered Species . By BirdLife International Inventory 2,500 is estimated to 10,000 copies.

literature

Web links

Commons : White-tailed Glossy Pheasant ( Lophophorus sclateri )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files