Germain's Peacock-Pheasant

About the Germain's Peacock-Pheasant

The Germain's peacock-pheasant (Polyplectron germaini) is a pheasant in the family Phasianidae endemic to Indochina. The name commemorates the French colonial army's veterinary surgeon Louis Rodolphe Germain. The bird is a medium-sized, approximately 60 centimetres (24 in) long, brownish dark pheasant with finely spotted buff, short crest, bare red facial skin, brown iris and purplish-blue ocelli on upperbody plumage and half of its tail of twenty feathers. Both sexes are similar. The female has eighteen tail feathers and is smaller than the male.

The phylogeny of this species is somewhat enigmatic. mtDNA cytochrome b and D-loop as well as the nuclear ovomucoid intron G data confirms that it belongs to a clade together with the grey peacock-pheasant, but also the "brown" southernly species bronze-tailed peacock-pheasant and mountain peacock-pheasant. Biogeography suggests that it may indeed be the most ancient form in its clade, speciating parapatrically or peripatrically in Cochinchina (Kimball et al. 2001). This probably took place in the Late Pliocene, roughly 4-3 mya.

The Germain's peacock-pheasant is endemic to southern... Wikipedia →