The red-billed spurfowl (''Pternistis adspersus''), also known as the red-billed francolin, is a species of

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 ...

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 ...

. It is found in Southern Africa, including

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

Botswana Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

, and

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

. The species exhibits sexual dimorphism in size. Males are larger, measuring in length and weighing , whereas females measure in length and weigh . The species has barred underparts (in contrast to the related

Natal spurfowl The Natal spurfowl or Natal francolin (''Pternistis natalensis'') is a species of bird in the family Phasianidae. It is found in Botswana, Eswatini, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Taxonomy The Natal spurfowl was described in 1833 ...

) and a conspicuous yellow eye-ring.McGowan, P.J.K. & Kirwan, G.M. (2017). Red-billed Francolin (Pternistis adspersus). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from http://www.hbw.com/node/53412 on 22 May 2017).

Taxonomy

The red-billed spurfowl was described in 1838 by the English naturalist

George Robert Waterhouse George Robert Waterhouse (6 March 1810 – 21 January 1888) was an English natural history, naturalist. He was a keeper at the department of geology and later curator of the Zoological Society of London's museum. Early life George was born ...

from specimens collected by

James Edward Alexander General Sir James Edward Alexander (16 October 1803 – 2 April 1885) was a Scottish traveller, writer and soldier in the British Army. Alexander was the driving force behind the placement of Cleopatra's Needle on the Thames Embankment. B ...

on his expedition to

Namaqualand Namaqualand ( Khoikhoi: "Nama-kwa" meaning Nama Khoi people's land) is an arid region of Namibia and South Africa, extending along the west coast over and covering a total area of . It is divided by the lower course of the Orange River int ...

and

Damaraland Damaraland was a name given to the north-central part of South West Africa, which later became Namibia, inhabited by the Damaras. It was bordered roughly by Ovamboland in the north, the Namib Desert in the west, the Kalahari Desert in the e ...

. Waterhouse coined the

binomial name In 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 grammatical forms, altho ...

''Francolinus adspersus'' and noted that the specimens had come near the Fish River in what is now Namibia. The specific epithet ''adspersus'' is Latin for "sprinkling". The species is now placed 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 ...

Pternistis ''Pternistis'' is a genus of galliform birds formerly classified in the spurfowl group of the partridge subfamily of the pheasant family. They are described as "partridge-francolins" in literature establishing their phylogenetic placement o ...

'' that was introduced by the German naturalist

Johann Georg Wagler Johann Georg Wagler (28 March 1800 – 23 August 1832) was a German herpetologist and ornithologist. Wagler was assistant to Johann Baptist von Spix, and gave lectures in zoology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich after it was moved t ...

in 1832. The red-billed spurfowl is considered as

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 ...

: the proposed

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

''mesicus'' is not recognised.

References

External links

* (Red-billed spurfowl = ) red-billed francolin
Species text in The Atlas of Southern African BirdsXeno-canto: audio recordings of the red-billed spurfowl
red-billed spurfowl Birds of Southern Africa red-billed spurfowl Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Galliformes-stub