Rock Partridge
Encyclopedia
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...
of the order Galliformes
Galliformes
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...
, gallinaceous 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...
s.
This 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...
has its main (native) range in southwestern Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
and southeastern 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...
, and is closely related and very similar to its eastern equivalent, the Chukar Partridge, A. chukar.
This is a resident breeder in dry, open and often hilly country. It nests in a scantily lined ground scrape laying 5-21 egg
Egg (biology)
An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...
s. The Rock Partridge takes a wide variety of seeds and some insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
food.
The Rock Partridge is a rotund bird, with a light brown back, grey breast and buff belly. The face is white with a black gorget. It has rufous-streaked flanks and red legs. When disturbed, it prefers to run rather than fly, but if necessary it flies a short distance on rounded wings.
It is very similar to the Chukar Partridge, but is greyer on the back and has a white, not yellowish foreneck. The sharply defined gorget distinguishes this species from Red-legged Partridge. The song is a noisy ga-ga-ga-ga-chakera- chakera- chakera.
This species is declining in parts of its range due to habitat loss and over-hunting. While it generally manages to hold its own, the status of the Sicilian
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
population may be more precarious and certainly deserves attention (Randi 2006).
Systematics
This species is closely related to the Chukar, Przevalski'sPrzevalski's Partridge
The Przevalski's Partridge or Rusty-necklaced Partridge is a species of bird in the Phasianidae family.It is found only in China.-References:* BirdLife International 2004. . Downloaded on 10 July 2007....
, and Philby's Partridge
Philby's Partridge
Philby's Partridge , is a relative of the chukar, red-legged partridge and barbary partridges native to southwestern Arabia and northern Yemen. Although similar in appearance to other Alectoris species, Philby's Partridge can be distinguished by its black cheeks and throat.The name commemorates the...
s, forming a superspecies
Superspecies
A superspecies is a group of at least two more or less distinctive species with approximately parapatric distributions. Not all species complexes, whether cryptices or ring species are superspecies, and vice versa, but many are...
. The Western Mediterranean Red-legged and Barbary Partridge
Barbary Partridge
The Barbary Partridge , is a gamebird in the pheasant family Phasianidae of the order Galliformes, gallinaceous birds....
s with their spotted neck collar are slightly more distant relatives. Nonetheless, although this species' range does not naturally overlap with that of its relatives, they co-occur where they have been introduced as gamebirds, for example in 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...
, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, and in southeastern 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...
where Red Partridges have been released. In these areas, hybrids between this species, the Chukar, and the Red Partridge are usually found.(McGowan 1994, see also Randi 2006)
Three living subspecies
Subspecies
Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...
are usually recognized (McGowan 1994), which differ marginally in coloration and somewhat more according to molecular studies (Randi 2006; see below for details):
- A. g. graeca (Meisner, 1804) - Eastern Rock Partridge
- E BosniaBosnia and HerzegovinaBosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
to GreeceGreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and BulgariaBulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, ApenninesApennine mountainsThe Apennines or Apennine Mountains or Greek oros but just as often used alone as a noun. The ancient Greeks and Romans typically but not always used "mountain" in the singular to mean one or a range; thus, "the Apennine mountain" refers to the entire chain and is translated "the Apennine...
.- A. g. saxatilis (BechsteinJohann Matthäus BechsteinJohann Matthäus Bechstein was a German naturalist, forester, ornithologist and entomologist. In Great Britain, he was known for his treatise on singing birds .-Biography:Bechstein was born in Waltershausen in the district of Gotha in Thuringia...
, 1805) - Central Rock Partridge
- A. g. saxatilis (Bechstein
- Southern half of the AlpsAlpsThe Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
to W BosniaBosnia and HerzegovinaBosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
.- A. g. whitakeri Schiebel, 1934 - Sicilian Rock Partridge
- Restricted to Sicily.
The proposed subspecies from the Apennines, A. g. orlandoi Priolo, 1984, is of doubtful validity. It is usually included in saxatilis, but apparently mostly derives from Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
n A. g. graeca. These probably crossed the Adriatic via a land-bridge during the last ice age, to become isolated only with the sea levels rising at the beginning of the Holocene
Holocene
The Holocene is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words and , meaning "entirely recent"...
c.12.000-10.000 years ago, with Alpine birds much less contributing to the Apennines population.(Randi 2006)
Apennine birds are not consistently recognizable by external morphology
Morphology (biology)
In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....
, and are only weakly differentiated with regards to mtDNA D-loop
D-loop
In molecular biology, a displacement loop or D-loop is a DNA structure where the two strands of a double-stranded DNA molecule are separated for a stretch and held apart by a third strand of DNA. The third strand has a base sequence which is complementary to one of the main strands and pairs with...
and hypervariable control region 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...
s and microsatellite genotyping. As they nonetheless consititute a discrete subpopulation evolving
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...
towards subspecies status, their population numbers could arguably deserve monitoring.(Randi 2006)
In addition, there was a paleosubspecies, A. g. martelensis, which is only known from fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s.