Snow Mountain Quail
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| iSnow Mountain Quail | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||
| Anurophasis monorthonyx van Oort, 1910 |
The Snow Mountain Quail, Anurophasis monorthonyx is a large, up to 28cm long, dark brown quail of Alpine grassland. It is the only member of monotypic genus Anurophasis. Both sexes are similar with brown plumage, horn-colored bill, yellow legs and brown iris. The female has whitish and more heavily black barred underparts than male.
An Indonesian endemic, the Snow Mountain Quail is confined to New Guinea highest elevation, the Snow Mountains of Irian Jaya. This little known bird is protected only by the remoteness of its habitat, an inaccessible area in elevation above 3000 metres.
The female lays up to three pale brown, dark-spotted eggs in a hollow nest under the edge of a grass tussock. The diet consists mainly of seeds, flowers, leaves and other vegetation matters.
Due to limited range and unprotected by Indonesian government, the Snow Mountain Quail is evaluated as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2004). Anurophasis monorthonyx. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Database entry includes a brief justification of why this species is near threatened
