The bronze-tailed peacock-pheasant (''Polyplectron chalcurum'') is also known as the Sumatran peacock-pheasant. It is an Indonesian

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 lightweig ...

Description

The bronze-tailed peacock-pheasant is a small, up to 56 cm long, dark brown

pheasant Pheasants ( ) are birds of several genera within the family Phasianidae in the order Galliformes. Although they can be found all over the world in introduced (and captive) populations, the pheasant genera native range is restricted to Eurasia ...

with dark grey legs, rather small head and long, narrow tail of sixteen feathers. The tail feathers are chestnut brown with metallic purplish bars near tips. Both sexes are similar. The male has longer tail, two spurs on legs and yellow

iris Iris most often refers to: *Iris (anatomy), part of the eye *Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess * ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants * Iris (color), an ambiguous color term Iris or IRIS may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional ent ...

while the unspurred female's is dark brown.

Taxonomy and evolution

The bronze-tailed peacock-pheasant belongs to the family Phasianidae and the genus ''

Polyplectron The peacock-pheasants are a bird genus, ''Polyplectron'', of the family Phasianidae, consisting of eight species. They are colored inconspicuously, relying on heavily on crypsis to avoid detection. When threatened, peacock-pheasants will alter t ...

'', which consists of seven peacock-pheasant

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

. There are two subspecies: * ''P. c. chalcurum'', described by Lesson in 1831, which is known as the southern bronze-tailed peacock-pheasant. * ''P. c. scutulatum'', described by Hoogerwerf in 1941, which is known as the northern bronze-tailed peacock-pheasant.

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA ...

cytochrome ''b'' and

D-loop In molecular biology, a displacement loop or D-loop is a DNA structure where the two strands of a double-stranded DNA molecule are separated for a stretch and held apart by a third strand of DNA. An R-loop is similar to a D-loop, but in this ca ...

as well as the nuclear

ovomucoid Ovomucoid is a protein found in egg whites. It is a trypsin inhibitor with three protein domains of the Kazal domain family. The homologs from chickens (''Gallus gallus'') and especially turkeys (''Meleagris gallopavo'') are best characterize ...

intron G data confirms that this species belongs to a clade together with the mountain peacock-pheasant, but also the mainland species Germain's peacock-pheasant and grey peacock-pheasant (Kimball ''et al.'' 2001). The molecular data suggests - though not with high confidence - that this species diverged relatively recently from ancestral grey peacock-pheasants. This is quite spurious, since biogeography, its peculiarly derived plumage, and the fact that it is an insular mountain endemic indicate it is derived from a comparatively small

founder population In population genetics, the founder effect is the loss of genetic variation that occurs when a new population is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population. It was first fully outlined by Ernst Mayr in 1942, using ...

; this would confound molecular analyses. What seems clear is that the present species

evolved Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

from mainland Southeast Asian stock, probably during the

Late Pliocene Late may refer to: * LATE, an acronym which could stand for: ** Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a proposed form of dementia ** Local-authority trading enterprise, a New Zealand business law ** Local average treatment effect, ...

to Early Pleistocene (3.6-1 myaNote that the

molecular clock The molecular clock is a figurative term for a technique that uses the mutation rate of biomolecules to deduce the time in prehistory when two or more life forms diverged. The biomolecular data used for such calculations are usually nucleo ...

calibration method used by Kimball ''et al.'' (2001) is now known to be inappropriate, yielding far too low estimates in galliform birds.). The loss of ocelli thus is, contrary to long-held opinion, an

autapomorphy In phylogenetics, an autapomorphy is a distinctive feature, known as a derived trait, that is unique to a given taxon. That is, it is found only in one taxon, but not found in any others or outgroup taxa, not even those most closely related to ...

, and the southern species of this clade - formerly separated in the genus ''Chalcurus'' - are probably not each other's closest relatives.

Distribution and habitat

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

, the bronze-tailed peacock-pheasant inhabits to mountain forests of west Sumatra.

Behaviour

As with other member in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

, this elusive bird is shy and very wary. But unlike other peacock-pheasants, it has no

ocelli A simple eye (sometimes called a pigment pit) refers to a form of eye or an optical arrangement composed of a single lens and without an elaborate retina such as occurs in most vertebrates. In this sense "simple eye" is distinct from a multi-l ...

Conservation

The bronze-tailed peacock-pheasant is evaluated as Least Concern on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

of Threatened Species.

References

External links

BirdLife Species Factsheet
{{Taxonbar, from=Q849988 bronze-tailed peacock-pheasant Birds of Sumatra bronze-tailed peacock-pheasant Taxa named by René Lesson