The starred wood quail (''Odontophorus stellatus'') 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 Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

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 ...

(New World quail). It is found in subtropical or tropical moist lowland

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

s of

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

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 ...

, and

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

Description

The starred wood quail is between about long, males being slightly larger than females. The bill is blackish, the irises brown and the legs grey, and the long feathers on the back of the head form a pronounced crest, reddish-brown in the male and brownish-black in the female. Other than this, the sexes are very similar in appearance; the front of the crown is dark brown and the rest of the head, neck, throat and mantle is grey. The general colour of the upper parts is olive-brown, marked with darker

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 ...

s, paler on the rump and darker on the wings and scapulars, with large black markings on the flight feathers and pale speckling on the wing coverts. The underparts are reddish-brown with white speckling on the sides of the breast and dark barring near the vent. The juvenile is similar but has an orange or reddish bill.

Ecology

A retiring and elusive bird, its presence in an area is disclosed by its distinctive two-syllable call, ''korkorralo, korkorralo, korkorralo'', which it utters repeatedly at dusk. The birds form

covey A herd is a social group of certain animals of the same species, either wildness, wild or Domestication, domestic. The form of collective animal behavior associated with this is called ''herding''. These animals are known as gregarious animals ...

s of five to eight and cross open ground in single file, keeping close to dense cover into which they can run if disturbed. They forage through the

leaf litter Plant litter (also leaf litter, tree litter, soil litter, litterfall, or duff) is dead plant material (such as leaves, bark, needles, twigs, and cladodes) that has fallen to the ground. This detritus or dead organic material and its constituen ...

for

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

s and fruits. Little is known about their breeding habits.

Distribution

The species is native to eastern Ecuador, much of Peru, western Brazil and northern Bolivia. It is typically found in moist lowland forests, including terre firme forests, flooding areas and transitional areas, below about (lower in Ecuador).

Status

''O. stellatus'' has a very wide distribution and is common in at least part of its range. The total population is thought to be declining but not at a sufficiently fast rate as to warrant putting the bird in a threatened category, so the

International Union for Conservation of Nature 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 stat ...

has assessed its conservation status as being of "

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1266800 starred wood quail Birds of Southern Amazonia starred wood quail Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by John Gould