Med Library . org

Open Source Encyclopedia

Red-necked Spurfowl

Welcome to MedLibrary.org. For best results, we recommend beginning with the navigation links at the top of the page, which can guide you through our collection of over 14,000 medication labels and package inserts. For additional information on other topics which are not covered by our database of medications, just enter your topic in the search box below:

Red-necked Spurfowl
Red-necked Francolin in Mikumi
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Galliformes
Family: Phasianidae
Subfamily: Perdicinae
Genus: Pternistis
Species: P. afer
Binomial name
Pternistis afer
(Müller, 1766)
Synonyms
  • Francolinus afer

The Red-necked Spurfowl or Red-necked Francolin (Pternistis afer), is a gamebird in the pheasant family Phasianidae of the order Galliformes, gallinaceous birds.

The Red-necked Spurfowl breeds across the central belt of Africa and down the east coast to Tanzania.

It is 25–38 cm in length, with a significant size difference between the subspecies, of which there are seven. It is a generally dark francolin, brown above and black-streaked grey or white underparts. The bill, bare facial skin, neck and legs are bright red.

The Red-necked Spurfowl is a wary species, keeping to deep cover, although it sometimes feeds in open scrub or cultivation if disturbance is limited and there are thickets nearby. The nest is a bare scrape, and three to nine eggs are laid.

Widespread and common throughout its large range, the Red-necked Spurfowl is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

References

External links