Black-breasted buttonquail

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Black-breasted buttonquail
brown and black bird on forest floor
Adult male, Inskip Point
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Turnicidae
Genus: Turnix
Species:
T. melanogaster
Binomial name
Turnix melanogaster
(John Gould, 1837)
Black-breasted buttonquail range
Synonyms[2]

Hemipodius melanogaster Gould, 1837
Colcloughia melanogaster Mathews, 1913
Colcloughia melanogaster goweri Mathews, 1916

The black-breasted buttonquail (Turnix melanogaster) is a rare

incubate
the eggs.

The black-breasted buttonquail is usually found in

leaf litter. Most of its original habitat has been cleared and the remaining populations are fragmented. The species is rated as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Red List of Endangered species and is listed as vulnerable under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999
. A three-year conservation project has been under way since 2021.

Taxonomy

The black-breasted buttonquail was originally

Charadriiformes).[10]

"Black-breasted buttonquail" has been designated the official name by the

K'gari (Fraser Island), know the bird as the mur'rindum bird.[14]

Description

The black-breasted buttonquail is a plump

rectrices and the wings are short with round tips. The length ranges from 17 to 19 cm (6.5 to 7.5 in), with females tending to be larger and heavier, weighing 80–119 g (2.8–4.2 oz), compared to males, which weigh 50–87 g (1.8–3.1 oz). Like other buttonquails, the female is more distinctively coloured than the male. Its head, neck, and breast are black with a chestnut tinge on the nape and rear of its crown, and small white spots on its neck and face forming a moustache and eyebrow-like pattern. The white spots coalesce into bars on its breast, and its underparts are dark grey. The male has a whitish face and neck with black speckles and darker ear coverts, and a brown-grey crown and nape. Its breast has black and white bars and spots, with red-brown on its flanks and more grey with dark barring on the rest of its underparts.[9] The juvenile resembles the adult male though has a blue-grey iris, duller brown-grey upperparts more heavily blotched with black on outer back and scapulars and less pale streaks.[9]

The female makes a low-pitched oom call[15] – a sequence of 5–7 notes that last 1.5–2.0 seconds each – which can be repeated 14–21 (or less commonly 1–4) times. This advertising call cannot be heard more than 50 m (160 ft) away, and is uttered only after there has been sufficient rainfall of 100 mm (4 in) within a few days. The female whistles quietly to its young.[9] The male makes a range of high staccato and clucking alarm or rallying calls,[9] including an ak ak call when separated from others in its covey.[16] Juveniles have a range of chirping or piping calls to induce feeding or raise an alarm.[9]

The black markings and large size of the female and the dark markings and whitish face of the male distinguish the species from the co-occurring painted buttonquail (Turnix varius).[9] The regurgitated globular pellets of the black-breasted buttonquail have a distinctive hook at the end, in contrast to those of the painted buttonquail, which are more cylindrical and gently curved.[16]

Distribution and habitat

The black-breasted buttonquail is found from Hervey Bay in central Queensland south to the northeastern corner of New South Wales,[17] generally in areas receiving 770–1,200 mm (30–47 in) rainfall annually.[9] There had been only ten reports from New South Wales in the decade leading up to 2009.[18] Fieldwork across the Wide Bay–Burnett region from 2016 to 2018 found it in scattered locations in its suitable habitat from Teewah Beach to Inskip Point on the mainland and along the east coast of near K'Gari.[19] It is found in Palmgrove National Park, which has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area for the species.[20] The black-breasted buttonquail was once populous on Inskip Point, with the area a destination for birdwatchers wanting to see this species. Mike West, former president of Birds Queensland, blamed dingoes and wild dogs for wiping out the population.[21]

The bird is rare and its habitat is

leaf litter, which the species forages in.[19] No other buttonquail species lives in its type of habitat.[14]

Behaviour

drawings of two bird heads
Illustrations of male (above) and female (below) by John Gould

The black-breasted buttonquail is generally ground-dwelling.[9] It has no hind toe and so cannot perch in trees.[14] If startled, it generally freezes or runs rather than flying.[9]

Breeding

The usual sex roles are reversed in the buttonquail genus (

incubate the eggs.[24] The breeding habits of the species are not well known as both the birds and their nests are difficult to find and monitor. There are conflicting reports on the duration of the breeding season; field observations by John Young in northern New South Wales indicate this is restricted to between October and March, yet there are other reports of chicks year-round, suggesting opportune breeding can take place at any time. Minimum temperatures in the studied areas in New South Wales can drop to −2 °C (28 °F) in cooler months; reproduction has been known to be inhibited by cold weather in captivity, hence breeding may be related to temperature in this part of its range. For most of the year, the female black-breasted buttonquail forms a covey with one to three males. During breeding season, the female establishes a territory while the males often form small territories within it. Agonistic behaviour between females has been observed but it is unclear how common it is. The female utters drumming calls as courtship, which is answered by clucking from the male.[25]

The nest is a shallow depression measuring 10 by 6 cm (4 by 2.5 in) scraped out of the leaf litter and ground, lined with leaves, moss and dried vegetation. It is often sited between the

nidifugous, and are able to forage by 8–11 days of age, though parents may feed them for two weeks. By 8–12 weeks, they gain adult plumage and are able to breed at three to five months old.[9]

Feeding

The black-breasted buttonquail forages on the ground in large areas of thick

leaf litter in vine forest, and thickets of vines or lantana. Leaves fall on these areas year-round,[22] with litter layers 3–10 cm (1–4 in) thick being preferred.[27] A covey of birds scrapes out up to a hundred plate-shaped shallow feeding sites, though ten to forty is more usual.[22] The buttonquail makes these by scratching at the ground with alternate legs in a circular pattern moving either clockwise or counterclockwise, creating the 20 cm (8 in) depression and pecking for invertebrates in the exposed ground. A 1995 study recovered the exoskeletons of ants, beetles (including weevils), spiders such as jumping spiders and the brown trapdoor spider (Euoplos variabilis), centipedes, millipedes, and snails such as Nitor pudibunda from pellets; the remains of soft-bodied invertebrates were not discernible.[16] A 2018 analysis of faecal pellets revealed beetles, ants and earwigs to be prominent, though the authors concluded the black-breasted buttonquail is a generalist insectivore. Plant material was scant, though this might have been an artefact due to its greater digestibility.[28]

Conservation status

The species is classified as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List.[29] It is listed as vulnerable by the Australian Government under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.[14] On a state level, it is listed as ‘Vulnerable’ under the Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992 and ‘Endangered’ under the New South Wales Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995.[18]

The population has been estimated at as few as 2500 breeding birds and declining, with no single population containing more than 250 individuals. The dry rainforest it lives in, although often adjacent to wet rainforest, is often located outside of national parks and protected areas and is thus at risk from further clearance for agriculture or development. Since European settlement, 90% of its habitat has been lost and much of what is left is fragmented. Furthermore, fieldwork in southeast Queensland showed that it did not forage in remnants under 7 ha (17 acres) in area.

cats, foxes and pigs, as well as humans, and weeds.[14]

As of 2021[update], the

bushfire on the island.[14]

References

  1. ^ BirdLife International (2022). "Turnix melanogaster". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2022: e.T22680556A211931315. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  2. ^ a b c Australian Biological Resources Study (14 April 2014). "Species Turnix (Austroturnix) melanogaster (Gould, 1837)". Australian Faunal Directory. Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, Australian Government. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
  3. ^ Gould, John (1837). "In Proceedings of meeting of Zoological Society of London". Proceedings of Meeting of Zoological Society of London. 5: 7–8.
  4. ISBN 978-1408125014
    .
  5. ^ Gray, George Robert (1840). A List of the Genera of Birds : with an indication of the typical species of each genus. R. and J.E. Taylor. p. 81.
  6. ^ a b Gould, John (1865). Handbook to the Birds of Australia. Vol. 2. Self-published. p. 178.
  7. ^ Mathews, Gregory M. (1913). "New Genera". Austral Avian Records. 2 (5): 110–112.
  8. ^ Mathews, Gregory M. (1916). "List of additions of new sub-species to, and changes in, my "List of the Birds of Australia"". Austral Avian Records. 3 (3): 53–58.
  9. ^
    ISBN 978-1408135655
    .
  10. PMID 13678682
    .
  11. ^ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2021). "Buttonquail, thick-knees, sheathbills, plovers, oystercatchers, stilts, painted-snipes, jacanas, Plains-wanderer, seedsnipes". World Bird List Version 12.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 9 April 2022.
  12. ^ Gould, John (1848). The Birds of Australia. Vol. 5. Self-published. pp. 81–82.
  13. ISBN 978-0643104716
    .
  14. ^ a b c d e f g Doole, Stephanie; Dowsett, David (5 December 2021). "Traditional owners on mission to save vulnerable black-breasted button quail on K'gari Fraser Island". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
  15. ^
    ISBN 0851791026
    .
  16. ^
    ISSN 1037-258X
    .
  17. ISBN 978-0643096141
    .
  18. ^ a b Department of Environment and Resource Management (3 October 2021). "National recovery plan for the black-breasted button-quail (Turnix melanogaster)". Biodiversity. Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. Retrieved 14 April 2022.
  19. ^
    S2CID 247534104
    .
  20. ^ "Important Bird Areas factsheet: Palmgrove". Birdata. Birds Australia. 2022. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
  21. ^ Johnson, Hayden (21 February 2013). "Dingoes and wild dogs blamed for quail tragedy". Fraser Coast Chronicle. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  22. ^
    doi:10.1016/S0006-3207(00)00149-X
    .
  23. doi:10.1080/00049158.1999.10674800
    .
  24. ISBN 0727000098
    .
  25. ^
    doi:10.1071/MU9960202
    .
  26. ISBN 0646427989
    .
  27. ^ Reif, Stephanie (9 July 2017). "Creating habitat for Black-breasted Button-quails". Land for Wildlife: South East Queensland. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  28. ^ Webster, Patrick; Lisle, Allan; Murray, Peter John (2019). "Faecal analysis of the diet of Black-breasted Button-quail". Corella. 43: 19–25.
  29. ^ "Recently recategorised species". Birdlife International (2012). Archived from the original on 28 August 2007. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
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