The dark-backed wood quail (''Odontophorus melanonotus'') is a

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

species in the family

Odontophoridae The New World quail are small birds, that despite their similar appearance and habits to the Old World quail, belong to a different family known as the Odontophoridae. In contrast, the Old World quail are in the Phasianidae family, sharing only ...

, which is the New World quail. It is found in

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

and

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The dark-backed wood quail is one of 15 species in the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

'' Odontophorus''. Within the genus, it is part of the chestnut wood quail

species complex In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

. At various times it has been proposed or considered as

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organism ...

with chestnut wood quail (''O. hyperythrus''), rufous-fronted wood quail (''O. erythrops''), and

rufous-breasted wood quail The rufous-breasted wood quail (''Odontophorus speciosus'') is a species of bird in the family Odontophoridae. It is found in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru primarily on the east side of the Andes between 800 and 2000m in elevation (higher in Peru). ...

(''O. speciosus'').Carroll, J. P., G. M. Kirwan, and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). Dark-backed Wood-Quail (''Odontophorus melanonotus''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.dbwqua1.01 retrieved September 12, 2021 The generic name ''Odontophorus'' is from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

''odontophoros'', meaning tooth-bearing. The

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

''melanonotus'' is from the Greek ''melas'', meaning black, and ''notus'', meaning backed. The species is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

Description

The dark-backed wood quail is long. Both males and females weigh about . Adults of both sexes are overall brownish black with fine chestnut

vermiculation Vermiculation is a surface pattern of dense but irregular lines, so called from the Latin meaning "little worm" because the shapes resemble worms, worm casts, or worm tracks in mud or wet sand. The word may be used in a number of contexts for ...

. The throat and breast are reddish chestnut. The juvenile is similarly colored but duller overall.

Distribution and habitat

The dark-backed wood quail is found in the Andes from southern Colombia's

Nariño Department Nariño () is a department of Colombia named after independence leader Antonio Nariño. Its capital is Pasto. It is in the west of the country, bordering Ecuador and the Pacific Ocean. Nariño has a diverse geography and varied climate acc ...

south to

Cotopaxi Province Cotopaxi () is one of the provinces of Ecuador. The capital is Latacunga. The province contains the Cotopaxi volcano, an intermittent volcano with a height of . Cantons The province is divided into 7 cantons. The following table lists each ...

in Ecuador. It inhabits primary and secondary

tropical forest Tropical forests are forested ecoregions with tropical climates – that is, land areas approximately bounded by the Tropic of Cancer, tropics of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, Capricorn, but possibly affected by other factors such as prevailing ...

in the fairly narrow altitudinal band between . Though primarily terrestrial, it roosts above ground in trees.

Behavior

Feeding

The dark-backed wood quail forages in groups of up to 10 birds seeking terrestrial invertebrates and fruit.

Breeding

Almost nothing is known about the dark-backed wood quail's breeding

phenology Phenology is the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as habitat factors (such as elevation). Examples include the date of emergence of leav ...

. Observations of recently hatched chicks and dependent young in many different months indicate a long breeding season or possibly two of them.

Vocalization

The dark-backed wood quail's advertising song is a duet, "a fast rollicking 'koreewow-koreewow-koreewow...'" and calls include "soft whistles and mellow rolling notes."

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

has assessed the dark-backed wood quail as vulnerable. "This species has a small and fragmented range, with recent records from few sites. Available habitat, and presumably the population, is declining."

References

External links

BirdLife International Species Factsheet.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q742535 dark-backed wood quail Birds of the Colombian Andes Birds of the Ecuadorian Andes dark-backed wood quail Taxonomy articles created by Polbot