The Manipur bush quail (''Perdicula manipurensis'') is a species of

quail Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally placed in the order Galliformes. The collective noun for a group of quail is a flock, covey, or bevy. Old World quail are placed in the family Phasianidae, and New ...

found in northeastern India and Bangladesh inhabiting damp grassland, particularly stands of tall grass. It was first collected and described by

Allan Octavian Hume Allan Octavian Hume, Order of the Bath, CB Indian Civil Service, ICS (4 June 1829 – 31 July 1912) was a British political reformer, ornithologist, civil servant and botanist who worked in British Raj, British India and was the founding spirit ...

on an ornithological expedition to Manipur in 1881. ''P. manipurensis'' is listed as Endangered on 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 ...

's Red List, as its habitat is small, fragmented, and rapidly shrinking. There was no confirmed sighting of the bird from 1932 until June 2006, when Anwaruddin Choudhury reported spotting the quail in

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

quoted the conservation director of the

Wildlife Trust of India The Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) is one of India's leading wildlife conservation action institutions. It works closely with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change under the Government of India, as well as with the respective sta ...

, Rahul Kaul, as saying, "This creature has almost literally returned from the dead."

History

A 1911 report by

Frank Finn Frank Finn FZS, MBOU (1868 – 1 October 1932) was an English ornithologist. Finn was born in Maidstone and educated at Maidstone Grammar School and Brasenose College, Oxford. He went on a collecting expedition to East Africa in 1892, and ...

, based on Captain Wood's field notes of 1899, noted that the species was common in the past. Wood noted that the bird was commonly trapped by Manipur people after bush fires and that the local name was ''lanz-soibol'' meaning "trap quail".

Gallery

Stamp of India - 2006 - Colnect 158988 - Manipur Bush Quail Perdicula manipurensis.jpeg

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1315912 Manipur bush quail Manipur bush quail Endemic birds of Northeast India Manipur bush quail