The Germain's peacock-pheasant (''Polyplectron germaini'') is a pheasant in the family

Phasianidae Phasianidae is a family (biology), family of heavy, ground-living birds, which includes pheasants, grouse, partridges, junglefowl, chickens, Turkey bird, turkeys, Old World quail, and peafowl. The family includes many of the most popular Game (hu ...

endemic to

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia (historically known as Indochina and the Indochinese Peninsula) is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to th ...

. The name commemorates the French colonial army's veterinary surgeon Louis Rodolphe Germain.

Description

The bird is a medium-sized, approximately long, brownish dark

pheasant Pheasants ( ) are birds of several genera within the family Phasianidae in the order Galliformes. Although they can be found all over the world in introduced (and captive) populations, the pheasant genera's native range is restricted to Eura ...

with finely spotted buff, short crest, bare red facial skin, brown iris and purplish-blue

ocelli A simple eye or ocellus (sometimes called a pigment pit) is a form of eye or an optical arrangement which has a single lens without the sort of elaborate retina that occurs in most vertebrates. These eyes are called "simple" to distinguish the ...

on upperbody plumage and half of its tail of twenty feathers. Both sexes are similar. The female has eighteen tail feathers and is smaller than the male.

Taxonomy

The

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree or phylogeny is a graphical representation which shows the evolutionary history between a set of species or Taxon, taxa during a specific time.Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, M ...

of this species is somewhat enigmatic.

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the DNA contained in ...

cytochrome ''b'' and

D-loop In molecular biology, a displacement loop or D-loop is a DNA structure where the two strands of a double-stranded DNA molecule are separated for a stretch and held apart by a third strand of DNA. An R-loop is similar to a D-loop, but in that cas ...

as well as the

nuclear Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics * Nuclear space *Nuclear ...

ovomucoid Ovomucoid is a protein found in egg whites. It is a trypsin inhibitor with three protein domains of the Kazal domain family. The homologs from chickens (''Gallus gallus'') and especially turkeys (''Meleagris gallopavo'') are best characteri ...

intron An intron is any nucleotide sequence within a gene that is not expressed or operative in the final RNA product. The word ''intron'' is derived from the term ''intragenic region'', i.e., a region inside a gene."The notion of the cistron .e., gen ...

G data confirms that it belongs to a

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

together with the

grey peacock-pheasant The grey peacock-pheasant (''Polyplectron bicalcaratum''), also known as Burmese peacock-pheasant, is a large Asian member of the order Galliformes. Taxonomy In 1747 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a descript ...

, but also the "brown" southernly species bronze-tailed peacock-pheasant and mountain peacock-pheasant.

Biogeography Biogeography is the study of the species distribution, distribution of species and ecosystems in geography, geographic space and through evolutionary history of life, geological time. Organisms and biological community (ecology), communities o ...

suggests that it may indeed be the most ancient form in its clade, speciating parapatrically or peripatrically in

Cochinchina Cochinchina or Cochin-China (, ; ; ; ; ) is a historical exonym and endonym, exonym for part of Vietnam, depending on the contexts, usually for Southern Vietnam. Sometimes it referred to the whole of Vietnam, but it was commonly used to refer t ...

(Kimball ''et al.'' 2001). This probably took place in the

Late Pliocene Late or LATE may refer to: Everyday usage * Tardy, or late, not being on time * Late (or the late) may refer to a person who is dead Music * Late (The 77s album), ''Late'' (The 77s album), 2000 * Late (Alvin Batiste album), 1993 * Late!, a pseudo ...

, roughly 4-3 mya. Note that the

molecular clock The molecular clock is a figurative term for a technique that uses the mutation rate of biomolecules to deduce the time in prehistory when two or more life forms diverged. The biomolecular data used for such calculations are usually nucleot ...

calibration method used by Kimball ''et al.'' (2001) is now known to be inappropriate, yielding far too low estimates in galliform birds.

Distribution and habitat

The Germain's peacock-pheasant is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to southern

. It is found in the

seasonal tropical forest Seasonal tropical forest, also known as moist deciduous, semi-evergreen seasonal, tropical mixed or monsoon forest, typically contains a range of tree species: only some of which drop some or all of their leaves during the dry season. This tropic ...

s of mid-southern

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

and far eastern

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

; it can be found readily in

Cat Tien National Park The cat (''Felis catus''), also referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the do ...

. The female usually lays two creamy-white eggs.

Status and conservation

Due to ongoing habitat loss and limited range, the Germain's peacock-pheasant is evaluated as Vulnerable on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...

of Threatened Species. It is listed on Appendix II of

CITES CITES (shorter acronym for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of inte ...

References

*Kimball, Rebecca T.; Braun, Edward L.; Ligon, J. David; Lucchini, Vittorio & Randi, Ettore (2001): A molecular phylogeny of the peacock-pheasants (Galliformes: ''Polyplectron'' spp.) indicates loss and reduction of ornamental traits and display behaviours. '' Biol. J. Linn. Soc.'' 73(2): 187–198
HTML abstract

External links

* ARKive
images and movies of the Germain's peacock-pheasant ''(Polyplectron germaini)''

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20061013182920/http://www.rdb.or.id/detailbird.php?id=219 Red Data Book {{Taxonbar, from=Q662719 Germain's peacock-pheasant Birds of Vietnam Near threatened animals Near threatened biota of Asia Germain's peacock-pheasant