Galliformes
Encyclopedia
Galliformes are an order
of heavy-bodied ground-feeding domestic or game bird
, containing turkey
, grouse
, chicken
, New
and Old World Quail
, ptarmigan
, partridge
, pheasant
, and the Cracidae
. Common names are gamefowl or gamebirds, landfowl, gallinaceous birds or galliforms. "Wildfowl" or just "fowl
" are also often used for Galliformes, but usually these terms also refer to waterfowl
(Anseriformes), and occasionally to other commonly hunted birds.
, one or more of which are found in essentially every part of the world's continent
s (except for the innermost desert
s and perpetual ice
). They are more rare on island
s, and in contrast to the closely related waterfowl are essentially absent from ocean
ic islands—except if introduced there by humans. Several species have been domesticated during their long and extensive relationship with humans.
This order contains five families: Meleagrididae (turkeys), Phasianidae
(including chicken, quail, partridges, pheasants, and grouse), Odontophoridae (New World quails), Numididae (guineafowl), Cracidae
(including chachalacas and currasows), and Megapodiidae (incubator birds like mallee fowl and brush-turkeys). They are important as seed dispersers and predators in the ecosystems they inhabit and are often reared as game birds by humans for meat and egg consumption and for recreational hunting. All are skilled runners that can fly only a few hundred feet when escaping danger. Males of most species are more colorful than the females. Males often have elaborate courtship behaviors that include strutting, fluffing of tail or head feathers, and vocal sounds. They are mainly non-migratory birds.
They are chicken-like in appearance, with rounded bodies and blunt wings, and range in size from small (6 inches) to large (4 feet). They are mainly terrestrial birds and their wings are short and rounded for short distanced flights.
They have diverse mating strategies: some are monogamous, while others are polygamous or polygynandrous (that is, when multiple males have a relationship with multiple females) link. Male courtship behavior includes elaborate visual displays of plumage. They breed seasonally in accordance with the climate and lay anywhere from 3-16 eggs per year in nests built on the ground or in trees.
Gallinaceous birds feed on a variety of plant and animal material, which may include fruits, seeds, leaves, shoots, flowers, tubers, roots, insects, snails, worms, lizards, snakes, small rodents, and eggs.
These birds vary in size from the diminutive King Quail (Coturnix chinensis) at 12.5 cm (5 in) long and weighing 28–40 g (1–1.4 oz) to the largest extant galliform species, the North America
n Wild Turkey
(Meleagris gallopavo), which may weigh as much as 14 kg (30.5 lb) and may exceed 120 cm (47 in).
The galliform bird species with the largest wing-span and largest overall length (including a train of over 6 feet) is most likely the Green Peafowl
(Pavo muticus). Most galliform genera
are plump-bodied with thick necks and moderately long legs, and have rounded and rather short wings. Grouse
, pheasant
s, francolin
s, and partridge
s are typical in their outwardly corpulent silhouettes. While most galliforms are rather weak-flying, flightless
forms are unknown among the living members of the order. The Sylviornis
, a huge prehistorically extinct mound-builder relative of New Caledonia
, was flightless, but as opposed to most other flightless birds like ratite
s or island rails which become flightless due to arrested development
of their flight apparatus and subsequently evolve
to larger size, the Sylviornis seems to have become flightless simply due to its bulk, with the wing reduction following a consequence, not the reason for its flightlessness. There are a number of prehistorically extinct mound-builders from Pacific islands, and these seem to have arrived at flightlessness in the more conventional way.
Adult males of many galliform birds have one to several sharp horny spurs on the back of each leg, which they use for fighting. In several lineages, there is pronounced sexual dimorphism
, and among each galliform clade
, the more apomorphic ("advanced") lineages tend to be more sexually dimorphic
.
species (such as quail
) do migrate
over considerable distances. Altitudinal migration is evidently quite common amongst montane
species and a few species of subtropical and subarctic
regions must reach their watering and/or foraging areas through sustained flight. Species known to make extensive flights include the ptarmigans, sage-grouse
(Centrocercus), Crested Partridge, Green Peafowl, Crested Argus, Mountain Peacock-Pheasant (Polyplectron inopinatum), Koklass Pheasant (Pucrasia macrolopha), Reeves's Pheasant
(Syrmaticus reevesii) and Green Junglefowl
(Gallus varius). Other species—most of the New World quail
s (also known as the toothed quails), the enigmatic Stone Partridge
(Ptilopachus petrosus) of Africa
, guineafowl
and eared pheasants (Crossoptilon
)—are all notable for their daily excursions on foot which may take them many miles in a given day.
Some Galliformes are adapted to grassland habitat
, and these genera are remarkable for their long, thin necks, long legs and large, wide wings. Fairly unrelated species
like the Crested Fireback
(Lophura ignita), Vulturine Guineafowl
(Acryllium vulturinum) and Malleefowl
(Leipoa ocellata) are outwardly similar in their body types (see also convergent evolution
).
Most species that show only limited sexual dimorphism
are notable for the great amount of locomotion required to find food throughout the majority of the year. Those species that are highly sedentary but with marked ecological transformations over seasons exhibit marked distinct differences between the sexes in size and/or appearance. Eared-pheasants, guineafowls, toothed quails and the Snow Partridge
(Lerwa lerwa) are examples of limited sexual differences and requirements for traveling over wide terrain to forage.
The Bronze-tailed Peacock-Pheasant (Polyplectron chalcurum), Snow Partridge, Painted Spurfowl
(Galloperdix lunulata) and the Crimson-headed Partridge
(Haematortyx sanguiniceps) are notable in their habit of moving around as pairs not only on foot but also in the air.
shoots. The young birds will also take insects.
Peafowl
, junglefowl
and most of the subtropical pheasant genera have very different nutritional requirements from typical Palearctic
genera. The Himalayan Monal
(Lophophorus impejanus) has been observed digging in the rotting wood of deadfall
in a similar manner to woodpecker
s to extract invertebrate
s, even bracing itself with aid of its squared tail. The Cheer Pheasant
(Catreus wallichi), Crested Argus
(Rheinardia ocellata), the Crested Partridge (Rollulus roulroul) and the Crested Guineafowl
(Guttera pucherani) are similar ecologically to the Himalayan Monal in that they too forage in rotting wood for termite
s, ant
and beetle
larva
e, molluscs, crustacean
s and young rodents.
Typical peafowl (Pavo), most of the peacock-pheasants (Polyplectron), the Bulwer's Pheasant
(Lophura bulweri), the ruffed pheasants (Chrysolophus
) and the hill partridges (Arborophila
) have narrow, relatively delicate bills, poorly suited for digging. These Galliform genera prefer instead to capture live invertebrates in leaf litter, in sand and in shallow pools or along stream banks. These genera are also outwardly similar in that they each have exceptionally long, delicate legs and toes and the tendency to frequent seasonally wet habitats to forage, especially during chick-rearing. The Blue Peafowl (Pavo cristatus) is famed in its native India
for its appetite for snakes – even poisonous cobra
s – which it dispatches with its strong feet and sharp bill. The Lady Amherst's Pheasant
(Chrysolophus amherstiae), Green Peafowl (Pavo muticus), Bulwer's Pheasant and the Crestless Fireback
(Lophura erythrophthalma) are notable for their aptitude to forage for crustaceans such as crayfish and other aquatic small animals in shallow streams and amongst rushes in much the same manner as some members of the rail family (Rallidae
).
The tragopans (Tragopan
), Mikado Pheasant
(Syrmaticus mikado) and several species of grouse and ptarmigan are exceptional in their largely vegetarian and arboreal foraging habitats; grouse are especially notable for being able to feed on plants rich in terpene
s and quinones – such as sagebrush
or conifers –, which are often avoided by other herbivores. But many species of moderate altitudes—for example the long-tailed pheasants of the genus Syrmaticus
—also find a great deal of their daily nutritional reqirements in the tree canopies
, especially during the snowy and rainy periods when foraging on the ground is dangerous and less than fruitful for a variety of reasons. Although members of the genus Syrmaticus are capable of subsisting almost entirely on vegetarian materials for months at a time, this is not true for many of the subtropical genera. For example, the Great Argus
(Argusianus argus) and Crested Argus may do most of their foraging during rainy months in the canopy of the jungle as well. There they are known to forage on slug
s, snail
s, ants and amphibian
s to the exclusion of plant material. How they forage in the forest canopy during the rainy months is unknown but is a compelling issue for future investigations.
es regularly exceeding 10 eggs in many species. In contrast to most birds which are – at least for a particular breeding season – monogamous, galliforms are often polygynous or polygamous. Such species can be recognized by their pronounced sexual dimorphism
.
Galliform young are very precocious and will roam their habitat with their mothers – or both parents in monogamous species – mere hours after hatching. The most extreme case are the Megapodidae, where the adults do not brood but leave incubation
to mounds of rotting vegetation, volcanic
ash or hot sand. The young have to dig their way out of the nest mounds after hatching, but they emerge from the eggs fully feathered and as soon as they leave the mound, they are able to fly for considerable distances.
The living Galliformes were long divided into some 7 or more families
. More recently, it is generally believed that the quite distinctly appearing grouse and turkeys do not warrant separation as families due to their quite recent origin from partridge
- or pheasant
-like birds. As it seems, the turkeys became huge after their ancestors colonized temperate and subtropical North America
where pheasant-sized competitors were absent. The ancestors of grouse, on the other hand, adapted to harsh climate and thus grouse could colonize subarctic
regions. Consequently the Phasianidae
are expanded in current treatments to include the former Tetraonidae and Meleagrididae as subfamilies.
The Anseriformes
(waterfowl
) and the Galliformes together make up the Galloanserae. They are basal among the living neognathous
birds, and normally follow the Paleognathae
(ratites and tinamous) in modern bird classification systems. This was first proposed in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy
and has been the one major change of that proposed scheme that was almost universally adopted. On the other hand, the Galliformes as they were traditionally delimited are called Gallomorphae in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, which splits the Cracidae
and Megapodidae as an order
"Craciformes". This is not a natural group however, but rather an erroneous result of the now-obsolete phenetic methodology employed in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy. Phenetic studies do not distinguish between plesiomorphic and apomorphic characters, which leads to basal lineages appearing as monophyletic groups.
Historically, the buttonquail
s (Turnicidae), mesite
s (Mesitornithidae) and the Hoatzin
(Opisthocomus hoazin) were placed in the Galliformes too. The former are now known to be shorebirds adapted to an inland lifestyle, whereas the mesites are probably closely related to pigeons & doves. The relationships of the Hoatzin are entirely obscure, and it is usually treated as a monotypic
order Opisthocomiformes to signify this.
, galliform ancestors must also have roamed the Earth contemporaneously with animals such as Tyrannosaurus rex
.
Indeed, there exist a few fragmentary fossil
s of putative galliforms from the Cretaceous
, of which the most interesting fossil taxon
is Austinornis. Formerly referred to as Ichthyornis
lentus, Graculavus
lentus or Pedioecetes lentus, its partial left tarsometatarsus
was found in the Late Cretaceous Austin Chalk
near Fort McKinney, Texas. This bird was quite certainly closely related to Galliformes, but whether it was a part of these or belongs elsewhere in the little-known galliform branch of Galloanserae is not clear.
Other Mesozoic
fossils are referred to the Galliformes with considerably less certainty: The very enigmatic Gallornis living in today's France
some 140–130 Ma (million years ago) was as far as anyone can tell an ornithuran
. But although the possibility that it was a very early galliform cannot be positively excluded, its ancient age makes this seem not particularly likely. The case of Austinornis shows that it is certainly possible to confuse a putative galliform with more primitive ornithurans like Ichthyornis.
Specimen PVPH 237 from the Late Cretaceous Portezuelo Formation
(Turonian
-Coniacian
, about 90 Ma) in the Sierra de Portezuelo (Argentina
) makes a far more plausible galliform candidate. This is a partial coracoid of a neornithine bird, which in its general shape and particularly the wide and deep attachment for the muscle joining the coracoid and the humerus
(upper arm) bone resembles the more basal lineages of galliforms.
The Paleogene
had several galliforms of now-extinct families, namely the Gallinuloididae, Paraortygidae and Quercymegapodiidae. In the early Cenozoic
, there are some additional birds that may or may not be early Galliformes, though even if they are, it is rather unlikely that these belong to extant families:
From the mid-Eocene
onwards – about 45 Ma or so –, modern-type galliforms are known, and these completely replace their older relatives in the early Neogene
. Since the earliest representatives of living galliform families apparently belong to the Phasianidae
– the youngest family of galliforms -, the other families of Galliformes must be at least of Early Eocene origin but might even be as old as the Late Cretaceous. The ichnotaxon
Tristraguloolithus cracioides is based on fossil eggshell fragments from the Late Cretaceous Oldman Formation
of southern Alberta, Canada which are similar to chachalaca
eggs, but in the absence of bone material their relationships cannot be determined except that they are apparently not from a non-avian
dinosaur
.
Modern genera of phasianids start appearing around the Oligo-
/Miocene
boundary, roughly 25–20 Ma. It is not well known whether the living genera of the other, older, galliform families originated around the same time or earlier, though at least in the New World quails, pre-Neogene forms seem to belong to genera that became entirely extinct later on.
A number of Paleogene to mid-Neogene fossils are quite certainly Galliformes, but their exact relationships in the order cannot be determined:
, variously including or excluding turkeys, grouse, New World quails and guineafowl, and divided into two subfamilies – the Phasianinae
(pheasant-like forms) and the Perdicinae
(partridge-like forms). This crude arrangement was long considered to be in serious need of revision, but even with modern DNA sequence
analyses and cladistic methods, the phylogeny of the Phasianidae has resisted complete resolution.
A tentative list of the higher-level galliform taxa, listed in evolutionary sequence, is:
The relationships of many pheasants and partridges are still very badly resolved and much confounded by adaptive radiation
(in the former) and convergent evolution
(in the latter). Thus, the bulk of the Phasianidae can alternatively be treated as a single subfamily Phasianinae. The grouse, turkeys, true pheasants etc., would then become tribe
s of this subfamily, similar of how the Coturnicinae are commonly split into a quail and a spurfowl tribe.
Note that the taxon
Perdicinae
is tentatively limited to the genus Perdix
and perhaps one or two others. That "the" partridge of Europe
is not closely related to other partridge-like Galliformes is already indicated by its sexually dimorphic coloration and numerous (more than 14) rectrices, traits it shares with the other advanced phasianids. However, among these its relationships are obscure; it is entirely unclear whether it is closer to the turkeys or to certain short-tailed pheasants like Ithaginis, Lophophorus, Pucrasia and Tragopan
.
Family Tetraonidae
Grouse, ptarmigans, and prairie chickens are all chicken-like birds with short, curved, strong bills part of the family Tetraonidae. This group includes 25 species residing mostly in North America. They are mainly ground-dwellers and have short, rounded wings for brief flights. They are well adapted to winter by growing feather “snowshoes” on their feet and roosting beneath the snow. They range in size from the 13-inch White-tailed Ptarmigan to the 28-inch Sage Grouse. Their plumage is dense and soft and is most commonly found in shades of red, brown, and gray in order to camouflage to the ground. They are polygamous and male courtship behavior includes strutting and dancing and aggressive fighting for possession of females. The typical clutch size is between 7 and 12 eggs.
Turkeys
Family Meleagrididae
Turkeys are large, long-legged birds that can grow up to four feet in height and weigh up to 30 lbs in the wild. They have a long broad, rounded tail with 14-19 blunt feathers. They have a naked wrinkled head and feathered body. The North American wild turkey - Meleagris gallopavo - has 5 distinct subspecies (Eastern, Rio Grande, Florida a.k.a. Osceola, Merriams, and Goulds). Hybrids also exist where the range of these subspecies overlaps. All are native only to North America, though transplanted populations exist elsewhere. Their plumage differs slightly by subspecies, but is generally dark to black for males, with buff to cream hightlights, and generally drab brown for females. The feathers are quite iridescent and can take on distinct reddish/copper hues in sunlight. Their feathers are well defined with broad, square ends, giving the bird the appearance of being covered in scales. Males have a “beard” of coarse black bristles hanging from the center of their upper breast and tend to have more vibrantly colored plumage than do females. They breed in the Spring and their typical clutch size is between 10 and 12 eggs. The "ocellated turkey" (Meleagris ocellata) is a different species of turkey, and currently exists only in a portion of the Yucutan peninsula. After the 19th and early 20th century wild turkey populations dropped significantly because of hunting and habitat loss. However, populations now flourish again thanks to hunting management and transplanting. The ocellated turkey, not commonly hunted, is currently threatened due to ongoing habitat loss in the Yucutan.
Pheasants, Quail, and Partridges
Family Phasianidae
The family is divided into four groups: 30 species of new world quail, residing between Paraguay and Canada, 11 species of old world quails in Africa, Australia, and Asia, 94 species of partridges, and 48 species of pheasants. This family includes a wide range of bird sizes from a 5 ½-inch quail to pheasants up to almost 30 inches. Pheasants and quails have heavy, round bodies and rounded wings. Even though they have short legs, they are very fast runners when escaping predators.
Chachalacas
Family Cracidae
Chachalacas are found in the chaparral ecosystems from southern Texas through Mexico and Costa Rica. They are mainly arboreal and make their nests in trees five to fifteen feet above the ground. They are large, long-legged, birds that can grow up to 26 inches long. They have long-tails and are chicken-like in appearance. Their frail looking yet sturdy nests are made out of sticks and leaves. Their clutch size is 3 or 4 eggs. The males make a unique, loud, mating call that give them their name: “cha-cha-la-ca”. Chachalacas feed mainly on berries but also eat insects. They are a popular game bird as their flesh is good to eat. They are also commonly domesticated as pets.
Order (biology)
In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...
of heavy-bodied ground-feeding domestic or game bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
, containing turkey
Turkey (bird)
A turkey is a large bird in the genus Meleagris. One species, Meleagris gallopavo, commonly known as the Wild Turkey, is native to the forests of North America. The domestic turkey is a descendant of this species...
, grouse
Grouse
Grouse are a group of birds from the order Galliformes. They are sometimes considered a family Tetraonidae, though the American Ornithologists' Union and many others include grouse as a subfamily Tetraoninae in the family Phasianidae...
, chicken
Chicken
The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...
, New
New World quail
The New World quails or Odontophorids are small birds only distantly related to the Old World Quails, but named for their similar appearance and habits. The American species are in their own family Odontophoridae, whereas Old World Quail are in the pheasant family Phasianidae...
and Old World Quail
Old World quail
Old World quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds in the pheasant family Phasianidae. New World quail are also found in the Galliformes, but are not in the same family . Buttonquails are not closely related at all, but are named for their similar appearance...
, ptarmigan
Lagopus
Lagopus is a small genus of birds in the grouse subfamily. It contains three existing species.-Species:* Willow Ptarmigan or Willow Grouse, Lagopus lagopus* Rock Ptarmigan , Lagopus muta...
, partridge
Partridge
Partridges are birds in the pheasant family, Phasianidae. They are a non-migratory Old World group.These are medium-sized birds, intermediate between the larger pheasants and the smaller quails. Partridges are native to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East...
, pheasant
Pheasant
Pheasants refer to some members of the Phasianinae subfamily of Phasianidae in the order Galliformes.Pheasants are characterised by strong sexual dimorphism, males being highly ornate with bright colours and adornments such as wattles and long tails. Males are usually larger than females and have...
, and the Cracidae
Cracidae
The chachalacas, guans and curassows are birds in the family Cracidae.These are species of tropical and subtropical Central and South America. One species, the Plain Chachalaca, just reaches southernmost Texas in the USA...
. Common names are gamefowl or gamebirds, landfowl, gallinaceous birds or galliforms. "Wildfowl" or just "fowl
Fowl
Fowl is a word for birds in general but usually refers to birds belonging to one of two biological orders, namely the gamefowl or landfowl and the waterfowl...
" are also often used for Galliformes, but usually these terms also refer to waterfowl
Waterfowl
Waterfowl are certain wildfowl of the order Anseriformes, especially members of the family Anatidae, which includes ducks, geese, and swans....
(Anseriformes), and occasionally to other commonly hunted birds.
Included species
This group has about 290 speciesSpecies
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
, one or more of which are found in essentially every part of the world's continent
Continent
A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents—they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.Plate tectonics is...
s (except for the innermost desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
s and perpetual ice
Ice
Ice is water frozen into the solid state. Usually ice is the phase known as ice Ih, which is the most abundant of the varying solid phases on the Earth's surface. It can appear transparent or opaque bluish-white color, depending on the presence of impurities or air inclusions...
). They are more rare on island
Island
An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...
s, and in contrast to the closely related waterfowl are essentially absent from ocean
Ocean
An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...
ic islands—except if introduced there by humans. Several species have been domesticated during their long and extensive relationship with humans.
This order contains five families: Meleagrididae (turkeys), Phasianidae
Phasianidae
The Phasianidae is a family of birds which consists of the pheasants and partridges, including the junglefowl , Old World Quail, francolins, monals and peafowl. The family is a large one, and is occasionally broken up into two subfamilies, the Phasianinae, and the Perdicinae...
(including chicken, quail, partridges, pheasants, and grouse), Odontophoridae (New World quails), Numididae (guineafowl), Cracidae
Cracidae
The chachalacas, guans and curassows are birds in the family Cracidae.These are species of tropical and subtropical Central and South America. One species, the Plain Chachalaca, just reaches southernmost Texas in the USA...
(including chachalacas and currasows), and Megapodiidae (incubator birds like mallee fowl and brush-turkeys). They are important as seed dispersers and predators in the ecosystems they inhabit and are often reared as game birds by humans for meat and egg consumption and for recreational hunting. All are skilled runners that can fly only a few hundred feet when escaping danger. Males of most species are more colorful than the females. Males often have elaborate courtship behaviors that include strutting, fluffing of tail or head feathers, and vocal sounds. They are mainly non-migratory birds.
Description
Lifestyle
Gallinaceous birds are arboreal or terrestrial animals; most do not fly, but walk and run instead for transportation. They live from 5–8 years in the wild and up to 30 years in captivity. They can be found worldwide and in a variety of habitats, including forests, deserts, and meadows. They use visual displays and vocalizations for communication, courtship, fighting, territoriality, and brooding.They have diverse mating strategies: some are monogamous, while others are polygamous or polygynandrous (that is, when multiple males have a relationship with multiple females) link. Male courtship behavior includes elaborate visual displays of plumage. They breed seasonally in accordance with the climate and lay anywhere from 3-16 eggs per year in nests built on the ground or in trees.
Gallinaceous birds feed on a variety of plant and animal material, which may include fruits, seeds, leaves, shoots, flowers, tubers, roots, insects, snails, worms, lizards, snakes, small rodents, and eggs.
These birds vary in size from the diminutive King Quail (Coturnix chinensis) at 12.5 cm (5 in) long and weighing 28–40 g (1–1.4 oz) to the largest extant galliform species, the North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
n Wild Turkey
Wild Turkey
The Wild Turkey is native to North America and is the heaviest member of the Galliformes. It is the same species as the domestic turkey, which derives from the South Mexican subspecies of wild turkey .Adult wild turkeys have long reddish-yellow to grayish-green...
(Meleagris gallopavo), which may weigh as much as 14 kg (30.5 lb) and may exceed 120 cm (47 in).
The galliform bird species with the largest wing-span and largest overall length (including a train of over 6 feet) is most likely the Green Peafowl
Green Peafowl
The Green Peafowl or Javan Peafowl, Pavo muticus is a large Galliform bird that is found in the tropical forests of Southeast Asia...
(Pavo muticus). Most galliform genera
Genera
Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...
are plump-bodied with thick necks and moderately long legs, and have rounded and rather short wings. Grouse
Grouse
Grouse are a group of birds from the order Galliformes. They are sometimes considered a family Tetraonidae, though the American Ornithologists' Union and many others include grouse as a subfamily Tetraoninae in the family Phasianidae...
, pheasant
Pheasant
Pheasants refer to some members of the Phasianinae subfamily of Phasianidae in the order Galliformes.Pheasants are characterised by strong sexual dimorphism, males being highly ornate with bright colours and adornments such as wattles and long tails. Males are usually larger than females and have...
s, francolin
Francolin
Francolins are birds that traditionally have been placed in the genus Francolinus, but now commonly are divided into multiple genera , although some of the major taxonomic listing sources have yet to divide them. They are members of the pheasant family, Phasianidae...
s, and partridge
Partridge
Partridges are birds in the pheasant family, Phasianidae. They are a non-migratory Old World group.These are medium-sized birds, intermediate between the larger pheasants and the smaller quails. Partridges are native to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East...
s are typical in their outwardly corpulent silhouettes. While most galliforms are rather weak-flying, flightless
Flightless bird
Flightless birds are birds which lack the ability to fly, relying instead on their ability to run or swim. They are thought to have evolved from flying ancestors. There are about forty species in existence today, the best known being the ostrich, emu, cassowary, rhea, kiwi, and penguin...
forms are unknown among the living members of the order. The Sylviornis
Sylviornis
Sylviornis is an extinct genus of galliform bird containing a single species, S. neocaledoniae, or erroneously, "New Caledonian Giant Megapode". Technically, the latter is incorrect because it has recently been found not to be a megapode, but the sole known member of its own family, the...
, a huge prehistorically extinct mound-builder relative of New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
, was flightless, but as opposed to most other flightless birds like ratite
Ratite
A ratite is any of a diverse group of large, flightless birds of Gondwanan origin, most of them now extinct. Unlike other flightless birds, the ratites have no keel on their sternum—hence the name from the Latin ratis...
s or island rails which become flightless due to arrested development
Neoteny
Neoteny , also called juvenilization , is one of the two ways by which paedomorphism can arise. Paedomorphism is the retention by adults of traits previously seen only in juveniles, and is a subject studied in the field of developmental biology. In neoteny, the physiological development of an...
of their flight apparatus and subsequently evolve
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
to larger size, the Sylviornis seems to have become flightless simply due to its bulk, with the wing reduction following a consequence, not the reason for its flightlessness. There are a number of prehistorically extinct mound-builders from Pacific islands, and these seem to have arrived at flightlessness in the more conventional way.
Adult males of many galliform birds have one to several sharp horny spurs on the back of each leg, which they use for fighting. In several lineages, there is pronounced sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is a phenotypic difference between males and females of the same species. Examples of such differences include differences in morphology, ornamentation, and behavior.-Examples:-Ornamentation / coloration:...
, and among each galliform clade
Clade
A clade is a group consisting of a species and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological...
, the more apomorphic ("advanced") lineages tend to be more sexually dimorphic
Sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is a phenotypic difference between males and females of the same species. Examples of such differences include differences in morphology, ornamentation, and behavior.-Examples:-Ornamentation / coloration:...
.
Ecology
Most of the galliform birds are more or less resident, but some of the smaller temperateTemperate
In geography, temperate or tepid latitudes of the globe lie between the tropics and the polar circles. The changes in these regions between summer and winter are generally relatively moderate, rather than extreme hot or cold...
species (such as quail
Quail
Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally considered in the order Galliformes. Old World quail are found in the family Phasianidae, while New World quail are found in the family Odontophoridae...
) do migrate
Bird migration
Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...
over considerable distances. Altitudinal migration is evidently quite common amongst montane
Montane
In biogeography, montane is the highland area located below the subalpine zone. Montane regions generally have cooler temperatures and often have higher rainfall than the adjacent lowland regions, and are frequently home to distinct communities of plants and animals.The term "montane" means "of the...
species and a few species of subtropical and subarctic
Subarctic
The Subarctic is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic and covering much of Alaska, Canada, the north of Scandinavia, Siberia, and northern Mongolia...
regions must reach their watering and/or foraging areas through sustained flight. Species known to make extensive flights include the ptarmigans, sage-grouse
Sage-grouse
The sage-grouse are the two species in the bird genus Centrocercus. They are the largest grouse from temperate North America. Adults have a long, pointed tail and legs with feathers to the toes. Like in most Galliformes, there is pronounced sexual dimorphism.-Courtship and Mating:Centrocercus...
(Centrocercus), Crested Partridge, Green Peafowl, Crested Argus, Mountain Peacock-Pheasant (Polyplectron inopinatum), Koklass Pheasant (Pucrasia macrolopha), Reeves's Pheasant
Reeves's Pheasant
The Reeves's Pheasant, Syrmaticus reevesii, is a large pheasant within the genus Syrmaticus. It is endemic to China....
(Syrmaticus reevesii) and Green Junglefowl
Green Junglefowl
The Green Junglefowl, Gallus varius also known as Javan Junglefowl, Forktail or Green Javanese Junglefowl is a medium-sized, up to 75 cm long, bird in the pheasant family Phasianidae...
(Gallus varius). Other species—most of the New World quail
New World quail
The New World quails or Odontophorids are small birds only distantly related to the Old World Quails, but named for their similar appearance and habits. The American species are in their own family Odontophoridae, whereas Old World Quail are in the pheasant family Phasianidae...
s (also known as the toothed quails), the enigmatic Stone Partridge
Stone Partridge
The Stone Partridge, Ptilopachus petrosus, is a bird of the pheasant family. This largely brown bird, which commonly holds its tail raised, is found in scrubland and lightly wooded habitats, often near rocks, from Kenya and Ethiopia to Gambia...
(Ptilopachus petrosus) of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, guineafowl
Guineafowl
The guineafowl are a family of birds in the Galliformes order, although some authorities include the guineafowl as a subfamily, Numidinae, of the family Phasianidae...
and eared pheasants (Crossoptilon
Crossoptilon
The genus Crossoptilon consists of four species of eared pheasants.All are large, sexually monomorphic and found in China.-Species:* White Eared Pheasant, Crossoptilon crossoptilon* Tibetan Eared Pheasant, Crossoptilon harmani...
)—are all notable for their daily excursions on foot which may take them many miles in a given day.
Some Galliformes are adapted to grassland habitat
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
, and these genera are remarkable for their long, thin necks, long legs and large, wide wings. Fairly unrelated species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
like the Crested Fireback
Crested Fireback
The Crested Fireback, Lophura ignita, is a medium-sized, up to 70 cm long, forest pheasant with a peacock-like dark crest, bluish black plumage, reddish brown rump, black outer tail feathers, red iris and bare blue facial skin...
(Lophura ignita), Vulturine Guineafowl
Vulturine Guineafowl
The Vulturine Guineafowl is the largest extant guineafowl species.Systematically, Acryllium are only distantly related to other guineafowl genera. Their closest living relative, the White Breasted Guineafowl, Agelastes meleagrides inhabit primary forests in Central Africa. bird family,...
(Acryllium vulturinum) and Malleefowl
Malleefowl
The Malleefowl is a stocky ground-dwelling Australian bird about the size of a domestic chicken...
(Leipoa ocellata) are outwardly similar in their body types (see also convergent evolution
Convergent evolution
Convergent evolution describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.The wing is a classic example of convergent evolution in action. Although their last common ancestor did not have wings, both birds and bats do, and are capable of powered flight. The wings are...
).
Most species that show only limited sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is a phenotypic difference between males and females of the same species. Examples of such differences include differences in morphology, ornamentation, and behavior.-Examples:-Ornamentation / coloration:...
are notable for the great amount of locomotion required to find food throughout the majority of the year. Those species that are highly sedentary but with marked ecological transformations over seasons exhibit marked distinct differences between the sexes in size and/or appearance. Eared-pheasants, guineafowls, toothed quails and the Snow Partridge
Snow Partridge
The Snow Partridge is a gamebird in the pheasant family Phasianidae found widely distributed across the high-altitude Himalayan regions of India, Pakistan, Nepal and China. It is the only species within the genus...
(Lerwa lerwa) are examples of limited sexual differences and requirements for traveling over wide terrain to forage.
The Bronze-tailed Peacock-Pheasant (Polyplectron chalcurum), Snow Partridge, Painted Spurfowl
Painted Spurfowl
The Painted Spurfowl is a bird of the pheasant family found in rocky hill and scrub forests mainly in peninsular India. Males are more brightly coloured and spotted boldly in white. Males have two to four spurs while females can have one or two of th spurs on their tarsus. The species is found...
(Galloperdix lunulata) and the Crimson-headed Partridge
Crimson-headed Partridge
The Crimson-headed Partridge is a species of bird in the Phasianidae family. It is found in Indonesia and Malaysia....
(Haematortyx sanguiniceps) are notable in their habit of moving around as pairs not only on foot but also in the air.
Winter ecology
Gallinaceous birds are well adapted to regions with cold winters. Their larger size, increased plumage, and lower activity levels help them to withstand the cold temperatures and conserve energy. Under such conditions, they are able to change their feeding strategy to that of a ruminant. This allows them to feed on and extract energy and nutrients from coarse, fibrous plant material, such as buds, twigs, and conifer needles. This provides a virtually unlimited source of accessible food and requires little energy to harvest. Additionally gallinaceous birds roost beneath the snow and create a thermal microclimate that conserves heat.Food and feeding
Herbivorous to slightly omnivorous galliforms, comprising the majority of the group, are typically stoutly built and have short thick bills primarily adapted for foraging on the ground for rootlets or the consumption of other plant material such as heatherCalluna
Calluna vulgaris is the sole species in the genus Calluna in the family Ericaceae. It is a low-growing perennial shrub growing to tall, or rarely to and taller, and is found widely in Europe and Asia Minor on acidic soils in open sunny situations and in moderate shade...
shoots. The young birds will also take insects.
Peafowl
Peafowl
Peafowl are two Asiatic species of flying birds in the genus Pavo of the pheasant family, Phasianidae, best known for the male's extravagant eye-spotted tail, which it displays as part of courtship. The male is called a peacock, the female a peahen, and the offspring peachicks. The adult female...
, junglefowl
Junglefowl
Junglefowl are the four living species of bird from the genus Gallus in the Gallinaceous bird order, which occur in India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and Indonesia....
and most of the subtropical pheasant genera have very different nutritional requirements from typical Palearctic
Palearctic
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is one of the eight ecozones dividing the Earth's surface.Physically, the Palearctic is the largest ecozone...
genera. The Himalayan Monal
Himalayan Monal
The Himalayan Monal, Lophophorus impejanus also known as the Impeyan Monal or Impeyan Pheasant or Danphe is a bird of genus Lophophorus of the pheasant family, Phasianidae. It is the national bird of Nepal, where it is known as the Danfe, and the state bird of Uttarakhand.Traditionally, the...
(Lophophorus impejanus) has been observed digging in the rotting wood of deadfall
Deadfall
Deadfall is a 1993 film directed by Christopher Coppola. Coppola co-wrote the script with friend, Nick Vallelonga. Starring Michael Biehn, Nicolas Cage, Charlie Sheen, James Coburn, and Peter Fonda.-Plot:...
in a similar manner to woodpecker
Woodpecker
Woodpeckers are near passerine birds of the order Piciformes. They are one subfamily in the family Picidae, which also includes the piculets and wrynecks. They are found worldwide and include about 180 species....
s to extract invertebrate
Invertebrate
An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...
s, even bracing itself with aid of its squared tail. The Cheer Pheasant
Cheer Pheasant
The Cheer Pheasant, Catreus wallichii also known as Wallich's Pheasant is an endangered species of the pheasant family, Phasianidae. It is the only member in monotypic genus Catreus...
(Catreus wallichi), Crested Argus
Crested Argus
The Crested Argus is a large and spectacular peacock-like pheasant with dark-brown-spotted black and buff plumage, a pink bill, brown irises and blue skin around the eyes. The head is small. The male has a broad and greatly elongated tail of twelve feathers. He measures from in total length...
(Rheinardia ocellata), the Crested Partridge (Rollulus roulroul) and the Crested Guineafowl
Crested Guineafowl
The Crested Guineafowl is a member of the Numididae, the guineafowl bird family. It is found in open forest, woodland and forest-savanna mosaics in sub-Saharan Africa. It has a total length of approximately 50 cm and weighs . The plumage is overall blackish with dense white spots...
(Guttera pucherani) are similar ecologically to the Himalayan Monal in that they too forage in rotting wood for termite
Termite
Termites are a group of eusocial insects that, until recently, were classified at the taxonomic rank of order Isoptera , but are now accepted as the epifamily Termitoidae, of the cockroach order Blattodea...
s, ant
Ant
Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...
and beetle
Beetle
Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek , koleos, "sheath"; and , pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms...
larva
Larva
A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...
e, molluscs, crustacean
Crustacean
Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...
s and young rodents.
Typical peafowl (Pavo), most of the peacock-pheasants (Polyplectron), the Bulwer's Pheasant
Bulwer's Pheasant
Bulwer's Pheasant is also known as Bulwer's Wattled Pheasant, the Wattled Pheasant, or the White-tailed Wattled Pheasant. It is a Southeast Asian bird in the Phasianidae family; endemic to the forests of Borneo. It is currently listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN.-Description:Bulwer's Pheasant is...
(Lophura bulweri), the ruffed pheasants (Chrysolophus
Chrysolophus
Chrysolophus is a genus of the pheasant family of birds.These are species which have spectacularly plumaged males. The Golden Pheasant is native to western China, and Lady Amherst's Pheasant to Tibet and westernmost China, but both have been widely introduced elsewhere...
) and the hill partridges (Arborophila
Arborophila
Arborophila is a genus of bird in the Phasianidae family. It is a very diverse genus, having the second most members within the Galliformes after Francolinus. These are fairly small, often brightly marked partridges found in forests of eastern and southern Asia...
) have narrow, relatively delicate bills, poorly suited for digging. These Galliform genera prefer instead to capture live invertebrates in leaf litter, in sand and in shallow pools or along stream banks. These genera are also outwardly similar in that they each have exceptionally long, delicate legs and toes and the tendency to frequent seasonally wet habitats to forage, especially during chick-rearing. The Blue Peafowl (Pavo cristatus) is famed in its native India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
for its appetite for snakes – even poisonous cobra
Cobra
Cobra is a venomous snake belonging to the family Elapidae. However, not all snakes commonly referred to as cobras are of the same genus, or even of the same family. The name is short for cobra capo or capa Snake, which is Portuguese for "snake with hood", or "hood-snake"...
s – which it dispatches with its strong feet and sharp bill. The Lady Amherst's Pheasant
Lady Amherst's Pheasant
The Lady Amherst's Pheasant, Chrysolophus amherstiae, is a bird of the order Galliformes and the family Phasianidae.These are native to south western China and Myanmar, but have been introduced elsewhere, and have established a self-supporting, but now declining, feral population in England, the...
(Chrysolophus amherstiae), Green Peafowl (Pavo muticus), Bulwer's Pheasant and the Crestless Fireback
Crestless Fireback
The Crestless Fireback is a species of bird in the Phasianidae family.It is found in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests....
(Lophura erythrophthalma) are notable for their aptitude to forage for crustaceans such as crayfish and other aquatic small animals in shallow streams and amongst rushes in much the same manner as some members of the rail family (Rallidae
Rallidae
The rails, or Rallidae, are a large cosmopolitan family of small to medium-sized birds. The family exhibits considerable diversity and the family also includes the crakes, coots, and gallinules...
).
Tragopan
Tragopan is a genus of bird in the family Phasianidae. These birds are commonly called "horny pheasants" because of two brightly-colored, fleshy horns on their heads that they can erect during courtship displays...
), Mikado Pheasant
Mikado Pheasant
The Mikado Pheasant, Syrmaticus mikado, is a gamebird in the pheasant family Phasianidae of the order Galliformes, gallinaceous birds.-Distribution and habitat:The Mikado Pheasant is endemic to mountainous regions of Taiwan...
(Syrmaticus mikado) and several species of grouse and ptarmigan are exceptional in their largely vegetarian and arboreal foraging habitats; grouse are especially notable for being able to feed on plants rich in terpene
Terpene
Terpenes are a large and diverse class of organic compounds, produced by a variety of plants, particularly conifers, though also by some insects such as termites or swallowtail butterflies, which emit terpenes from their osmeterium. They are often strong smelling and thus may have had a protective...
s and quinones – such as sagebrush
Sagebrush
Sagebrush is a common name of a number of shrubby plant species in the genus Artemisia native to western North America;Or, the sagebrush steppe ecoregion, having one or more kinds of sagebrush, bunchgrasses and others;...
or conifers –, which are often avoided by other herbivores. But many species of moderate altitudes—for example the long-tailed pheasants of the genus Syrmaticus
Syrmaticus
The genus Syrmaticus contains the five species of long-tailed pheasants. The males have short spurs and usually red facial wattles, but otherwise differ wildly in appearance...
—also find a great deal of their daily nutritional reqirements in the tree canopies
Canopy (forest)
In biology, the canopy is the aboveground portion of a plant community or crop, formed by plant crowns.For forests, canopy also refers to the upper layer or habitat zone, formed by mature tree crowns and including other biological organisms .Sometimes the term canopy is used to refer to the extent...
, especially during the snowy and rainy periods when foraging on the ground is dangerous and less than fruitful for a variety of reasons. Although members of the genus Syrmaticus are capable of subsisting almost entirely on vegetarian materials for months at a time, this is not true for many of the subtropical genera. For example, the Great Argus
Great Argus
The Great Argus, Argusianus argus is a brown-plumaged pheasant with a small blue head and neck, rufous red upper breast, black hair-like feathers on crown and nape, and red legs. The male is among the largest of all pheasants. He measures in total length, including a tail of , and weighs . It has...
(Argusianus argus) and Crested Argus may do most of their foraging during rainy months in the canopy of the jungle as well. There they are known to forage on slug
Slug
Slug is a common name that is normally applied to any gastropod mollusc that lacks a shell, has a very reduced shell, or has a small internal shell...
s, snail
Snail
Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...
s, ants and amphibian
Amphibian
Amphibians , are a class of vertebrate animals including animals such as toads, frogs, caecilians, and salamanders. They are characterized as non-amniote ectothermic tetrapods...
s to the exclusion of plant material. How they forage in the forest canopy during the rainy months is unknown but is a compelling issue for future investigations.
Reproduction
Most galliforms are very prolific, with clutchClutch (eggs)
A clutch of eggs refers to all the eggs produced by birds or reptiles, often at a single time, particularly those laid in a nest.In birds, destruction of a clutch by predators, , results in double-clutching...
es regularly exceeding 10 eggs in many species. In contrast to most birds which are – at least for a particular breeding season – monogamous, galliforms are often polygynous or polygamous. Such species can be recognized by their pronounced sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is a phenotypic difference between males and females of the same species. Examples of such differences include differences in morphology, ornamentation, and behavior.-Examples:-Ornamentation / coloration:...
.
Galliform young are very precocious and will roam their habitat with their mothers – or both parents in monogamous species – mere hours after hatching. The most extreme case are the Megapodidae, where the adults do not brood but leave incubation
Avian incubation
Incubation refers to the process by which certain oviparous animals hatch their eggs, and to the development of the embryo within the egg. The most vital factor of incubation is the constant temperature required for its development over a specific period. Especially in domestic fowl, the act of...
to mounds of rotting vegetation, volcanic
Volcanism
Volcanism is the phenomenon connected with volcanoes and volcanic activity. It includes all phenomena resulting from and causing magma within the crust or mantle of a planet to rise through the crust and form volcanic rocks on the surface....
ash or hot sand. The young have to dig their way out of the nest mounds after hatching, but they emerge from the eggs fully feathered and as soon as they leave the mound, they are able to fly for considerable distances.
Systematics and evolution
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
. More recently, it is generally believed that the quite distinctly appearing grouse and turkeys do not warrant separation as families due to their quite recent origin from partridge
Partridge
Partridges are birds in the pheasant family, Phasianidae. They are a non-migratory Old World group.These are medium-sized birds, intermediate between the larger pheasants and the smaller quails. Partridges are native to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East...
- or pheasant
Pheasant
Pheasants refer to some members of the Phasianinae subfamily of Phasianidae in the order Galliformes.Pheasants are characterised by strong sexual dimorphism, males being highly ornate with bright colours and adornments such as wattles and long tails. Males are usually larger than females and have...
-like birds. As it seems, the turkeys became huge after their ancestors colonized temperate and subtropical North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
where pheasant-sized competitors were absent. The ancestors of grouse, on the other hand, adapted to harsh climate and thus grouse could colonize subarctic
Subarctic
The Subarctic is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic and covering much of Alaska, Canada, the north of Scandinavia, Siberia, and northern Mongolia...
regions. Consequently the Phasianidae
Phasianidae
The Phasianidae is a family of birds which consists of the pheasants and partridges, including the junglefowl , Old World Quail, francolins, monals and peafowl. The family is a large one, and is occasionally broken up into two subfamilies, the Phasianinae, and the Perdicinae...
are expanded in current treatments to include the former Tetraonidae and Meleagrididae as subfamilies.
The Anseriformes
Anseriformes
The order Anseriformes contains about 150 living species of birds in three extant families: the Anhimidae , Anseranatidae , and the Anatidae, which includes over 140 species of waterfowl, among them the ducks, geese, and swans.All species in the order are highly adapted for an aquatic existence at...
(waterfowl
Waterfowl
Waterfowl are certain wildfowl of the order Anseriformes, especially members of the family Anatidae, which includes ducks, geese, and swans....
) and the Galliformes together make up the Galloanserae. They are basal among the living neognathous
Neognathae
Neognaths are birds within the subclass Neornithes of the class Aves. The Neognathae include virtually all living birds; their sister taxon Palaeognathae contains the tinamous and the flightless ratites....
birds, and normally follow the Paleognathae
Paleognathae
The Palaeognathae or paleognaths are one of the two living superorders of birds. The other living superorder is Neognathae. Together these two clades form the subclass Neornithes....
(ratites and tinamous) in modern bird classification systems. This was first proposed in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy
Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy
The Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy is a bird taxonomy proposed by Charles Sibley and Jon Edward Ahlquist. It is based on DNA-DNA hybridization studies conducted in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s....
and has been the one major change of that proposed scheme that was almost universally adopted. On the other hand, the Galliformes as they were traditionally delimited are called Gallomorphae in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, which splits the Cracidae
Cracidae
The chachalacas, guans and curassows are birds in the family Cracidae.These are species of tropical and subtropical Central and South America. One species, the Plain Chachalaca, just reaches southernmost Texas in the USA...
and Megapodidae as an order
Order (biology)
In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...
"Craciformes". This is not a natural group however, but rather an erroneous result of the now-obsolete phenetic methodology employed in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy. Phenetic studies do not distinguish between plesiomorphic and apomorphic characters, which leads to basal lineages appearing as monophyletic groups.
Historically, the buttonquail
Buttonquail
Buttonquail or hemipodes are members of a small family of birds, Turnicidae, which resemble, but are unrelated to, the quails of Phasianidae. They inhabit warm grasslands in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Australia...
s (Turnicidae), mesite
Mesite
The mesites are a family of birds of uncertain affinities. They are smallish, near flightless birds endemic to Madagascar. Generally brownish with paler undersides, they are of somewhat pheasant-like appearance and were initially placed with the Galliformes...
s (Mesitornithidae) and the Hoatzin
Hoatzin
The Hoatzin , also known as the Hoactzin, Stinkbird, or Canje Pheasant, is a species of tropical bird found in swamps, riverine forest and mangrove of the Amazon and the Orinoco delta in South America...
(Opisthocomus hoazin) were placed in the Galliformes too. The former are now known to be shorebirds adapted to an inland lifestyle, whereas the mesites are probably closely related to pigeons & doves. The relationships of the Hoatzin are entirely obscure, and it is usually treated as a monotypic
Monotypic
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...
order Opisthocomiformes to signify this.
Evolution
Given that the oldest known waterfowl, Vegavis iaai, dates from the Late CretaceousLate Cretaceous
The Late Cretaceous is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous period is divided in the geologic timescale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous series...
, galliform ancestors must also have roamed the Earth contemporaneously with animals such as Tyrannosaurus rex
Tyrannosaurus
Tyrannosaurus meaning "tyrant," and sauros meaning "lizard") is a genus of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur. The species Tyrannosaurus rex , commonly abbreviated to T. rex, is a fixture in popular culture. It lived throughout what is now western North America, with a much wider range than other...
.
Indeed, there exist a few fragmentary fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s of putative galliforms from the Cretaceous
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...
, of which the most interesting fossil taxon
Taxon
|thumb|270px|[[African elephants]] form a widely-accepted taxon, the [[genus]] LoxodontaA taxon is a group of organisms, which a taxonomist adjudges to be a unit. Usually a taxon is given a name and a rank, although neither is a requirement...
is Austinornis. Formerly referred to as Ichthyornis
Ichthyornis
Ichthyornis is a genus of toothed seabirds from the Late Cretaceous of North America. Its fossil remains are known from the chalks of Alberta, Alabama, Kansas, New Mexico, Saskatchewan, and Texas, in strata that were laid down in the Western Interior Seaway during the Turonian-Campanian ages,...
lentus, Graculavus
Graculavus
Graculavus is a prehistoric bird genus that was described by O. C. Marsh. Its remains were found in the Late Cretaceous Austin Chalk of Texas and Lance Formation , and the controversial Hornerstown Formation which straddles the Cretaceous–Paleocene boundary, possibly dating to the Danian stage...
lentus or Pedioecetes lentus, its partial left tarsometatarsus
Tarsometatarsus
The tarsometatarsus is a bone that is found in the lower leg of certain tetrapods, namely birds.It is formed from the fusion of several bones found in other types of animals, and homologous to the mammalian tarsal and metatarsal bones...
was found in the Late Cretaceous Austin Chalk
Austin Chalk
The Austin Chalk is an upper Cretaceous geologic formation in the Gulf Coast region of the United States. It is named after type section outcrops near Austin, Texas...
near Fort McKinney, Texas. This bird was quite certainly closely related to Galliformes, but whether it was a part of these or belongs elsewhere in the little-known galliform branch of Galloanserae is not clear.
Other Mesozoic
Mesozoic
The Mesozoic era is an interval of geological time from about 250 million years ago to about 65 million years ago. It is often referred to as the age of reptiles because reptiles, namely dinosaurs, were the dominant terrestrial and marine vertebrates of the time...
fossils are referred to the Galliformes with considerably less certainty: The very enigmatic Gallornis living in today's France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
some 140–130 Ma (million years ago) was as far as anyone can tell an ornithuran
Ornithurae
Ornithurae is the name of a natural group which includes all modern birds as well as their extinct relatives with plough-shaped pygostyles, a bone at the end of the tail which allows the tail feathers to fan and retract....
. But although the possibility that it was a very early galliform cannot be positively excluded, its ancient age makes this seem not particularly likely. The case of Austinornis shows that it is certainly possible to confuse a putative galliform with more primitive ornithurans like Ichthyornis.
Specimen PVPH 237 from the Late Cretaceous Portezuelo Formation
Portezuelo Formation
The Portezuelo Formation is a geologic formation outcropping in the Mendoza, Río Negro and Neuquén provinces of Argentina. It is the fourth-oldest formation in the Neuquén Group and the older of the two formations in the Río Neuquén Subgroup...
(Turonian
Turonian
The Turonian is, in the ICS' geologic timescale, the second age in the Late Cretaceous epoch, or a stage in the Upper Cretaceous series. It spans the time between 93.5 ± 0.8 Ma and 89.3 ± 1 Ma...
-Coniacian
Coniacian
The Coniacian is an age or stage in the geologic timescale. It is a subdivision of the Late Cretaceous epoch or Upper Cretaceous series and spans the time between 89.3 ± 1 Ma and 85.8 ± 0.7 Ma...
, about 90 Ma) in the Sierra de Portezuelo (Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
) makes a far more plausible galliform candidate. This is a partial coracoid of a neornithine bird, which in its general shape and particularly the wide and deep attachment for the muscle joining the coracoid and the humerus
Humerus
The humerus is a long bone in the arm or forelimb that runs from the shoulder to the elbow....
(upper arm) bone resembles the more basal lineages of galliforms.
The Paleogene
Paleogene
The Paleogene is a geologic period and system that began 65.5 ± 0.3 and ended 23.03 ± 0.05 million years ago and comprises the first part of the Cenozoic Era...
had several galliforms of now-extinct families, namely the Gallinuloididae, Paraortygidae and Quercymegapodiidae. In the early Cenozoic
Cenozoic
The Cenozoic era is the current and most recent of the three Phanerozoic geological eras and covers the period from 65.5 mya to the present. The era began in the wake of the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous that saw the demise of the last non-avian dinosaurs and...
, there are some additional birds that may or may not be early Galliformes, though even if they are, it is rather unlikely that these belong to extant families:
- †Argillipes (London Clay Early Eocene of England)
- †Coturnipes (Early Eocene of England, and Virginia, USA?)
- †Paleophasianus (Willwood Early Eocene of Bighorn County, USA)
- †Percolinus (London Clay Early Eocene of England)
- †Amitabha (Bridger middle Eocene of Forbidden City, USA) – phasianid?
- †"Palaeorallus" alienus (middle Oligocene of Tatal-Gol, Mongolia)
- †Anisolornis (Santa Cruz Middle Miocene of Karaihen, Argentina)
From the mid-Eocene
Eocene
The Eocene Epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the...
onwards – about 45 Ma or so –, modern-type galliforms are known, and these completely replace their older relatives in the early Neogene
Neogene
The Neogene is a geologic period and system in the International Commission on Stratigraphy Geologic Timescale starting 23.03 ± 0.05 million years ago and ending 2.588 million years ago...
. Since the earliest representatives of living galliform families apparently belong to the Phasianidae
Phasianidae
The Phasianidae is a family of birds which consists of the pheasants and partridges, including the junglefowl , Old World Quail, francolins, monals and peafowl. The family is a large one, and is occasionally broken up into two subfamilies, the Phasianinae, and the Perdicinae...
– the youngest family of galliforms -, the other families of Galliformes must be at least of Early Eocene origin but might even be as old as the Late Cretaceous. The ichnotaxon
Ichnotaxon
An ichnotaxon is defined by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature as "a taxon based on the fossilized work of an organism", that is, the non-human equivalent of an artifact. Ichnotaxa are names used to identify and distinguish morphologically distinctive ichnofossils, more commonly...
Tristraguloolithus cracioides is based on fossil eggshell fragments from the Late Cretaceous Oldman Formation
Oldman Formation
The Oldman Formation is the middle member of the Judith River Group, a major geologic unit in southern Alberta. The formation is widely recognized as bearing a great number of well preserved dinosaur skeletons, as well as other fossils.-Age:...
of southern Alberta, Canada which are similar to chachalaca
Chachalaca
Chachalacas are mainly brown birds from the genus Ortalis. These cracids are found in wooded habitats in far southern United States , Mexico, and Central and South America. They are social, can be very noisy and often remain fairly common even near humans, as their relatively small size makes them...
eggs, but in the absence of bone material their relationships cannot be determined except that they are apparently not from a non-avian
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
.
Modern genera of phasianids start appearing around the Oligo-
Oligocene
The Oligocene is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 34 million to 23 million years before the present . As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are slightly...
/Miocene
Miocene
The Miocene is a geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about . The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell. Its name comes from the Greek words and and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene...
boundary, roughly 25–20 Ma. It is not well known whether the living genera of the other, older, galliform families originated around the same time or earlier, though at least in the New World quails, pre-Neogene forms seem to belong to genera that became entirely extinct later on.
A number of Paleogene to mid-Neogene fossils are quite certainly Galliformes, but their exact relationships in the order cannot be determined:
- †Austinornis (Austin Chalk Late Cretaceous of Fort McKinney, USA) – tentatively placed here, formerly Graculavus/Ichthyornis/Pedioecetes lentus
- †Procrax (middle Eocene? – Early Oligocene) – cracid? gallinuloidid?
- †PalaeortyxPalaeortyxPalaeortyx is an extinct genus of galliform bird. It lived from the middle Eocene to the early Pliocene, and may be a phasianid or odontophorid. It is known from a complete skeleton, found in Germany....
(middle Eocene -? Early Pliocene) – phasianid or odontophorid - †Palaeonossax (Brule Late Oligocene of South Dakota, USA) – cracid?
- †Taoperdix (Late Oligocene) – gallinuloidid? Includes "Tetrao" pessieti
- †Archaealectrornis (Oligocene) – phasianid?
- †Galliformes gen. et sp. indet. (Oligocene) – formerly in Gallinuloides; phasianid?
- †Archaeophasianus (Oligocene? – Late Miocene) – phasianid? (tetraonine?)
- †Palaealectoris (Agate Fossil Beds Early Miocene of Sioux County, USA) – tetraonine?
- †Linquornis (middle Miocene)
- †Palaeoalectoris (Xiacaowan middle Miocene of Sihong, China)
- †Shandongornis (middle Miocene)
- †"Cyrtonyx" tedfordi (Barstow Late Miocene of Barstow, USA)
List of major taxa
For a long time, the pheasants, partridges and relatives were indiscriminately lumped in the PhasianidaePhasianidae
The Phasianidae is a family of birds which consists of the pheasants and partridges, including the junglefowl , Old World Quail, francolins, monals and peafowl. The family is a large one, and is occasionally broken up into two subfamilies, the Phasianinae, and the Perdicinae...
, variously including or excluding turkeys, grouse, New World quails and guineafowl, and divided into two subfamilies – the Phasianinae
Phasianinae
Phasianinae refers to the subfamily of Phasianidae in the order Galliformes.They are characterised by strong sexual dimorphism, males being highly ornate with bright colours and adornments such as wattles and long tails. Males are usually larger than females and have longer tails. Males play no...
(pheasant-like forms) and the Perdicinae
Perdicinae
The Perdicinae are birds in a subfamily in the pheasant family, the Phasianidae. They are a non-migratory Old World group.These are medium-sized birds, and are native to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East...
(partridge-like forms). This crude arrangement was long considered to be in serious need of revision, but even with modern DNA sequence
DNA sequence
The sequence or primary structure of a nucleic acid is the composition of atoms that make up the nucleic acid and the chemical bonds that bond those atoms. Because nucleic acids, such as DNA and RNA, are unbranched polymers, this specification is equivalent to specifying the sequence of...
analyses and cladistic methods, the phylogeny of the Phasianidae has resisted complete resolution.
A tentative list of the higher-level galliform taxa, listed in evolutionary sequence, is:
- Family †Paraortygidae
- Family †Quercymegapodiidae
- Family †Sylviornithidae – Sylviornis
- Family Megapodidae – mound-builders and scrubfowl, or megapodes
- Family CracidaeCracidaeThe chachalacas, guans and curassows are birds in the family Cracidae.These are species of tropical and subtropical Central and South America. One species, the Plain Chachalaca, just reaches southernmost Texas in the USA...
– chachalacas, guans and curassows - Superfamily Phasianoidea
- Family †Gallinuloididae – tentatively placed here
- Family Odontophoridae – New World quail
- Family Numididae – guineafowl
- Family PhasianidaePhasianidaeThe Phasianidae is a family of birds which consists of the pheasants and partridges, including the junglefowl , Old World Quail, francolins, monals and peafowl. The family is a large one, and is occasionally broken up into two subfamilies, the Phasianinae, and the Perdicinae...
– pheasantPheasantPheasants refer to some members of the Phasianinae subfamily of Phasianidae in the order Galliformes.Pheasants are characterised by strong sexual dimorphism, males being highly ornate with bright colours and adornments such as wattles and long tails. Males are usually larger than females and have...
s, partridgePartridgePartridges are birds in the pheasant family, Phasianidae. They are a non-migratory Old World group.These are medium-sized birds, intermediate between the larger pheasants and the smaller quails. Partridges are native to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East...
s and relatives- Subfamily Arborophilinae – jungle- and wood-partridges
- Subfamily Coturnicinae – Old World quailOld World quailOld World quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds in the pheasant family Phasianidae. New World quail are also found in the Galliformes, but are not in the same family . Buttonquails are not closely related at all, but are named for their similar appearance...
, scrub-partridges and spurfowlFrancolinFrancolins are birds that traditionally have been placed in the genus Francolinus, but now commonly are divided into multiple genera , although some of the major taxonomic listing sources have yet to divide them. They are members of the pheasant family, Phasianidae... - Subfamily Pavoninae – peafowlPeafowlPeafowl are two Asiatic species of flying birds in the genus Pavo of the pheasant family, Phasianidae, best known for the male's extravagant eye-spotted tail, which it displays as part of courtship. The male is called a peacock, the female a peahen, and the offspring peachicks. The adult female...
and ocellated pheasants - Subfamily Gallininae – francolinFrancolinFrancolins are birds that traditionally have been placed in the genus Francolinus, but now commonly are divided into multiple genera , although some of the major taxonomic listing sources have yet to divide them. They are members of the pheasant family, Phasianidae...
s and junglefowlJunglefowlJunglefowl are the four living species of bird from the genus Gallus in the Gallinaceous bird order, which occur in India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and Indonesia....
(including chickens) - Subfamily Meleagridinae – turkeys
- Subfamily PerdicinaePartridgePartridges are birds in the pheasant family, Phasianidae. They are a non-migratory Old World group.These are medium-sized birds, intermediate between the larger pheasants and the smaller quails. Partridges are native to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East...
– grey partridges (probably belong in either Meleagridinae or Phasianinae) - Subfamily Tetraoninae – grouse
- Subfamily PhasianinaePhasianinaePhasianinae refers to the subfamily of Phasianidae in the order Galliformes.They are characterised by strong sexual dimorphism, males being highly ornate with bright colours and adornments such as wattles and long tails. Males are usually larger than females and have longer tails. Males play no...
– true pheasants
The relationships of many pheasants and partridges are still very badly resolved and much confounded by adaptive radiation
Adaptive radiation
In evolutionary biology, adaptive radiation is the evolution of ecological and phenotypic diversity within a rapidly multiplying lineage. Starting with a recent single ancestor, this process results in the speciation and phenotypic adaptation of an array of species exhibiting different...
(in the former) and convergent evolution
Convergent evolution
Convergent evolution describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.The wing is a classic example of convergent evolution in action. Although their last common ancestor did not have wings, both birds and bats do, and are capable of powered flight. The wings are...
(in the latter). Thus, the bulk of the Phasianidae can alternatively be treated as a single subfamily Phasianinae. The grouse, turkeys, true pheasants etc., would then become tribe
Tribe (biology)
In biology, a tribe is a taxonomic rank between family and genus. It is sometimes subdivided into subtribes.Some examples include the tribes: Canini, Acalypheae, Hominini, Bombini, and Antidesmeae.-See also:* Biological classification* Rank...
s of this subfamily, similar of how the Coturnicinae are commonly split into a quail and a spurfowl tribe.
Note that the taxon
Taxon
|thumb|270px|[[African elephants]] form a widely-accepted taxon, the [[genus]] LoxodontaA taxon is a group of organisms, which a taxonomist adjudges to be a unit. Usually a taxon is given a name and a rank, although neither is a requirement...
Perdicinae
Perdicinae
The Perdicinae are birds in a subfamily in the pheasant family, the Phasianidae. They are a non-migratory Old World group.These are medium-sized birds, and are native to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East...
is tentatively limited to the genus Perdix
Perdix
Perdix is a genus of partridges with representatives in most of temperate Europe and Asia. One member of the genus, the Grey Partridge, has been introduced to the United States and Canada....
and perhaps one or two others. That "the" partridge of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
is not closely related to other partridge-like Galliformes is already indicated by its sexually dimorphic coloration and numerous (more than 14) rectrices, traits it shares with the other advanced phasianids. However, among these its relationships are obscure; it is entirely unclear whether it is closer to the turkeys or to certain short-tailed pheasants like Ithaginis, Lophophorus, Pucrasia and Tragopan
Tragopan
Tragopan is a genus of bird in the family Phasianidae. These birds are commonly called "horny pheasants" because of two brightly-colored, fleshy horns on their heads that they can erect during courtship displays...
.
Common species
Grouse and PtarmigansFamily Tetraonidae
Grouse, ptarmigans, and prairie chickens are all chicken-like birds with short, curved, strong bills part of the family Tetraonidae. This group includes 25 species residing mostly in North America. They are mainly ground-dwellers and have short, rounded wings for brief flights. They are well adapted to winter by growing feather “snowshoes” on their feet and roosting beneath the snow. They range in size from the 13-inch White-tailed Ptarmigan to the 28-inch Sage Grouse. Their plumage is dense and soft and is most commonly found in shades of red, brown, and gray in order to camouflage to the ground. They are polygamous and male courtship behavior includes strutting and dancing and aggressive fighting for possession of females. The typical clutch size is between 7 and 12 eggs.
Turkeys
Family Meleagrididae
Turkeys are large, long-legged birds that can grow up to four feet in height and weigh up to 30 lbs in the wild. They have a long broad, rounded tail with 14-19 blunt feathers. They have a naked wrinkled head and feathered body. The North American wild turkey - Meleagris gallopavo - has 5 distinct subspecies (Eastern, Rio Grande, Florida a.k.a. Osceola, Merriams, and Goulds). Hybrids also exist where the range of these subspecies overlaps. All are native only to North America, though transplanted populations exist elsewhere. Their plumage differs slightly by subspecies, but is generally dark to black for males, with buff to cream hightlights, and generally drab brown for females. The feathers are quite iridescent and can take on distinct reddish/copper hues in sunlight. Their feathers are well defined with broad, square ends, giving the bird the appearance of being covered in scales. Males have a “beard” of coarse black bristles hanging from the center of their upper breast and tend to have more vibrantly colored plumage than do females. They breed in the Spring and their typical clutch size is between 10 and 12 eggs. The "ocellated turkey" (Meleagris ocellata) is a different species of turkey, and currently exists only in a portion of the Yucutan peninsula. After the 19th and early 20th century wild turkey populations dropped significantly because of hunting and habitat loss. However, populations now flourish again thanks to hunting management and transplanting. The ocellated turkey, not commonly hunted, is currently threatened due to ongoing habitat loss in the Yucutan.
Pheasants, Quail, and Partridges
Family Phasianidae
The family is divided into four groups: 30 species of new world quail, residing between Paraguay and Canada, 11 species of old world quails in Africa, Australia, and Asia, 94 species of partridges, and 48 species of pheasants. This family includes a wide range of bird sizes from a 5 ½-inch quail to pheasants up to almost 30 inches. Pheasants and quails have heavy, round bodies and rounded wings. Even though they have short legs, they are very fast runners when escaping predators.
Chachalacas
Family Cracidae
Chachalacas are found in the chaparral ecosystems from southern Texas through Mexico and Costa Rica. They are mainly arboreal and make their nests in trees five to fifteen feet above the ground. They are large, long-legged, birds that can grow up to 26 inches long. They have long-tails and are chicken-like in appearance. Their frail looking yet sturdy nests are made out of sticks and leaves. Their clutch size is 3 or 4 eggs. The males make a unique, loud, mating call that give them their name: “cha-cha-la-ca”. Chachalacas feed mainly on berries but also eat insects. They are a popular game bird as their flesh is good to eat. They are also commonly domesticated as pets.