Gray Partridge

About the Gray Partridge

The grey partridge (Perdix perdix) is a bird in the pheasant family Phasianidae of the order Galliformes, gallinaceous birds. The scientific name is the Latin for "partridge". The grey partridge was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Tetrao perdix. Linnaeus specified the type locality as Europe but this has been restricted to Sweden. The word perdix is Latin meaning "partridge", from Ancient Greek περδιξ/perdix meaning "partridge". The grey partridge together with the Daurian partridge and the Tibetan partridge are now placed in the genus Perdix that was introduced in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson.

Eight subspecies are recognised by the IOC World Bird List, though the differences are clinal, and not all are accepted by other authorities; the HBW/BirdLife International list only accepts six subspecies; the differences noted below:

P. p. perdix (Linnaeus, 1758). Nominate, found in the British Isles and southern Scandinavia to Italy and the Balkans. P. p. armoricana (Hartert, 1917). Southwestern France. P. p. sphagnetorum (Altum, 1894... Wikipedia →