The red spurfowl (''Galloperdix spadicea'') is a member of the
pheasant family and 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 India. It is a bird of forests, and is quite secretive despite its size. It has a distinctive call and is often hard to see except for a few seconds when it flushes from the undergrowth. It appears reddish and like a long-tailed partridge. The bare skin around the eye is reddish. The legs of both males and females have one or two spurs, which give them their name.
Taxonomy
The red spurfowl was
formally described
A species description is a formal scientific description of a newly encountered species, typically articulated through a scientific publication. Its purpose is to provide a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differ ...
in 1789 by the German naturalist
Johann Friedrich Gmelin
Johann Friedrich Gmelin (8 August 1748 – 1 November 1804) was a German natural history, naturalist, chemist, botanist, entomologist, herpetologist, and malacologist.
Education
Johann Friedrich Gmelin was born as the eldest son of Philipp F ...
in his revised and expanded edition of
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...
's ''
Systema Naturae
' (originally in Latin written ' with the Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...
''. He placed it with all the grouse like birds 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 ...
''
Tetrao
''Tetrao'' is a genus of birds in the grouse subfamily known as capercaillies. They are some of the largest living grouse. Feathers from the bird were used to create the characteristic hat of the bersaglieri, an Italian ace infantry formation.
...
'' and 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 ...
''Tetrao spadiceus''. Gmelin based his description on
Pierre Sonnerat
Pierre Sonnerat (18 August 1748 – 31 March 1814) was a French naturalist, colonial administrator, writer and explorer. He described numerous species of plants and animals on his travels and is honoured in the genus ''Sonneratia'' and in other ...
's "La perdrix rouge de Madagascar". Gmelin specified the
type locality as Madagascar. This is an error, the species is found in India. The red spurfowl is now placed with
painted spurfowl and the
Sri Lanka spurfowl in the genus ''
Galloperdix
''Galloperdix'' is a genus of three species of bird in the pheasant family, Phasianidae. These Terrestrial animal, terrestrial birds are restricted to the Indian Subcontinent, with the red spurfowl and painted spurfowl in forest and scrub in Indi ...
'' that was introduced in 1845 by the English zoologist
Edward Blyth
Edward Blyth (23 December 1810 – 27 December 1873) was an English zoologist who worked for most of his life in India as a curator of zoology at the Asiatic Society, Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta.
He set about updating the museum ...
.
The genus name combines the Latin word ''gallus'' for a "farmyard cock" with ''perdix'' meaning "partridge". The specific epithet ''spadicea'' is from
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
''spadix'', ''spadicis'' meaning "chestnut-coloured" or "date-coloured".
Three
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 ...
are recognised:
[
* ''G. s. spadicea'' (Gmelin, JF, 1789) – west Nepal and north, central India
* ''G. s. caurina'' Blanford, 1898 – Aravalli red spurfowl. ]Aravalli Range
The Aravalli Range (also spelled ''Aravali'') is a mountain range in North India, Northern-Western India, running approximately in a south-west direction, starting near Delhi, passing through southern Haryana and Rajasthan, and ending in Ahme ...
of southern Rajasthan
Rajasthan (; Literal translation, lit. 'Land of Kings') is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the List of states and union territories of ...
(west India)
* ''G. s. stewarti'' Baker, ECS, 1919 – central, south Kerala
Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...
(south India)
In colouration, the females show clinal variation becoming darker towards the south of their range. The name used in Marathi was recorded as ''Kokee-tree'' and is probably onomatopoeic.
Description
Overall reddish-brown, this large partridge-like bird has a somewhat long tail. The upper parts are brown with dark barring while the face and neck are more grey in the male. The underside is rufous with dark markings and both sexes have a red facial skin patch and red legs with one or two spurs (rarely three or four while females may have none). Downy chicks have an unmarked cinnamon brown head, a dark brown band along the back bordered by creamy stripes edged with thin lines of dark brown. The male of the distinctive Kerala
Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...
race, ''G. s. stewarti'' has all-chestnut plumage, including the head feathers.[ Both sexes have long feathers on the crown that can be erected into a crest.
]
Distribution and habitat
The species is found in scrub, dry and moist-deciduous forests often in hilly country. They are found south of the Ganges
The Ganges ( ; in India: Ganga, ; in Bangladesh: Padma, ). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international which goes through India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China." is a trans-boundary rive ...
across India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
. They prefer areas with good undergrowth including those formed by the invasive ''Lantana
''Lantana'' () is a genus of about 150 species of perennial plant, perennial flowering plants in the verbena family, Verbenaceae. They are native to tropics, tropical regions of the Americas and Africa but exist as an introduced species in num ...
''.
Behaviour and ecology
Red spurfowl usually forage in small parties of three to five. When walking around, the tail is sometimes held vertical as in domestic fowl. They are quite silent in the day but call in the mornings and evenings. They feed on fallen seeds, berries, mollusk
Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The ...
s and insects apart from swallowing grit to aid digestion. When flushed, the usually fly a short distance and stay in well-defined territories throughout the year. They roost in trees.[
The calls include a distinct ''ker-wick...kerwick...'' and harsh ''karr...karrr...'' notes. The Marathi name ''Kokatri'' is echoic in origin.][
The breeding season is January to June, mainly before the rains. A ground nesting bird, it lays 3-5 ]egg
An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...
s in a scrape. Males are monogynous which usually indicates greater male investment in parental duties but they do not incubate. Males have been observed to distract the attention of predators when females with chicks are nearby.
The widespread nematode '' Heterakis gallinae'' has been recorded in the species in captivity while Ixodid
The Ixodidae are the family of hard ticks or scale ticks, one of the three families of ticks, consisting of 771 species, . They are known as 'hard ticks' because they have a scutum or hard shield, which the other major family of ticks, the 'sof ...
ticks have been noted in the wild. A species of helminth '' Lerouxinema lerouxi'' has been described with the red spurfowl as type host. Keratinophilic fungi such as '' Ctenomyces serratus'' have been noted from the species.
References
External links
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1269712
red spurfowl
Birds of India
Endemic birds of India
red spurfowl
red spurfowl