The Venezuelan wood quail (''Odontophorus columbianus'') is a

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

species in the family Odontophoridae, the New World quail. It is found in the

Venezuelan Coastal Range The Venezuelan Coastal Range ( es, Cordillera de la Costa or ), also known as Venezuelan Caribbean Mountain System ( es, Sistema Montañoso Caribe) is a mountain range system and one of the eight natural regions of Venezuela, that runs along the c ...

Taxonomy and systematics

Some authors have suggested that the Venezuelan wood quail and

gorgeted wood quail The rare gorgeted wood quail (''Odontophorus strophium'') is a small ground-dwelling bird. This tiny member of the New World quail family has been found in the larger oak forest remnants in the eastern Cordillera ( Serrania de Yariguies and NorA ...

(''Odontophorus strophium''),

Tacarcuna wood quail The Tacarcuna wood quail (''Odontophorus dialeucos'') is a species of bird in the family Odontophoridae, the New World quail. It is found in Colombia and Panama. Taxonomy and systematics Some authors have suggested that the Tarcarcuna wood ...

(''O. dialeucos''),

black-fronted wood quail The black-fronted wood quail (''Odontophorus atrifrons'') is a bird species in the family Odontophoridae, the New World quail. It is found in Colombia and Venezuela. Taxonomy and systematics Some authors have suggested that the black-fronted w ...

(''O. atrifons''), and

black-breasted wood quail The black-breasted wood quail (''Odontophorus leucolaemus'') is a bird species in the family Odontophoridae. It is found in Costa Rica and Panama. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forest. Taxonomy The black-breaste ...

(''O. lecuolaemus'') are actually a single species, but this treatment has not been accepted by the major avian taxonomic systems. The species is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

.Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ Retrieved August 25, 2021Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 24 August 2021. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved August 24, 2021HBW and BirdLife International (2020) ''Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world'' Version 5. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v5_Dec20.zip xls zipped 1 MBretrieved May 27, 2021

Description

The Venezuelan wood quail is long. Males are estimated to weigh and females . Adult males have a white throat and chin with black streaks. The rest of the plumage is reddish brown with large white marks on the breast, belly, and flanks. The female has paler brown underparts with less conspicuous white marks, and the juvenile is similar to the female.Carroll, J. P., G. M. Kirwan, and C. J. Sharpe (2020). Venezuelan Wood-Quail (''Odontophorus columbianus''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.venwoq1.01 retrieved September 13, 2021

Distribution and habitat

The Venezuelan wood quail is principally found in the central part of Venezuela's Coastal Range, from

Carabobo , anthem = '' Himno del Estado Carabobo'' , image_map = Carabobo in Venezuela.svg , map_alt = , map_caption = Location within Venezuela , pushpin_map = , pushpin_map_ ...

east to northwestern Miranda. There are also two sight records from Táchira in the west near the Colombian border. It inhabits the floor of subtropical

cloudforest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud c ...

at elevations between .

Behavior

Feeding

The Venezuelan wood quail forages by scratching litter and bare soil to feed on seeds, fruits, insects, worms, and roots.

Breeding

The Venezuelan wood quail's breeding season begins in March and is thought to extend to the end of July. One nest has been found; it was at the base of palms, had a roof of vegetation, and contained six eggs.

Vocalization

The Venezuelan wood quail's advertising call is "a rapidly repeated antiphonal duet" rendered as "churdole-chur-it, churdole-chur-it...".

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

has assessed the Venezuelan wood quail as Near Threatened "because it has a small extent of occurrence within which it is presumed to be declining owing to habitat loss and hunting pressure".

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1268703 Venezuelan wood quail Birds of the Venezuelan Coastal Range Endemic birds of Venezuela Venezuelan wood quail Taxonomy articles created by Polbot