White eared pheasant

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White eared pheasant

Near Threatened (IUCN 3.1)[1]
CITES Appendix I (CITES)[2]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Galliformes
Family: Phasianidae
Genus: Crossoptilon
Species:
C. crossoptilon
Binomial name
Crossoptilon crossoptilon
(Hodgson, 1838)

The white eared pheasant (Crossoptilon crossoptilon), also known as Dolan’s eared pheasant

Buddhist
monasteries.

Flight

White eared pheasants tend to fly a great deal more than their close relatives, such as the

Syrmaticus pheasants, all of which inhabit snowy regions and use sustained flight for feeding during winter. Characteristic of these species and C. crossoptilon is the lack of a prominent tailing wing notch.[4]

Diet

C. crossoptilon forages for

. When hard-pressed during the most severe winter storms, which may blow for weeks at a time, eared pheasants may subsist upon pine pitch and deer, rabbit, and yak dung.

Subspecies

While all known forms of white eared pheasant are very similar in phenotype, behavioral and genetic differences suggest much is available to learn about their systematic and behavioral ecology.[citation needed]

The Szechuan white eared pheasant, (C. c. crossoptilon), is a

bird native to the Sichuan (Szechuan) region of China
. It is a subspecies of white eared pheasant. This form inhabits high altitudes along exposed rockscapes and may descend to old-growth forests in winter. Its wings are dark-grey or violet.

This bird is predominantly white, including, as its name suggests, white ear tuffs, but is not as white in as many places of its body as its close relatives, the Tibetan white eared pheasant (C. c. drouyni) and the Yunnan white eared pheasant (C. c. lichiangnse). It has black tail feathers and wingtips, and a patch of black at the top of its head. The primary feathers range from dark grey to brown. The part of its face not covered by feathers has red skin.

Reproduction

The Szechuan white eared pheasant will not mate until it is two years old, then it will go into a heated breeding frenzy around the end of April. The breeding lasts until June and these pheasants usually produce four to seven

incubation
period for eggs is 24–25 days.

Although not much sexual dimorphism exists among the Szechuan white eared pheasant, the cocks are considerably larger than the hens. They can reach a length of 86–96 cm and weigh 1400–2050 g for females and 2350–2750 g for males.[5]

Conservation status

The Szechuan white eared pheasant has now become a near-threatened species. Human development and encroaching on its habitat in agricultural China has reduced the range of the species, and hunting of these pheasants for food has threatened their numbers severely.[1]

An estimated 6,700 to 33,000 individuals exist in the wild today.[6] C. crossoptilon is informally protected by the area’s Tibetan Buddhist culture.[6]

See also

References

External links