Black-bellied Sandgrouse

About the Black-bellied Sandgrouse

The black-bellied sandgrouse (Pterocles orientalis) is a medium large bird in the sandgrouse family. The nominate race breeds in Iberian Peninsula, Northwest Africa, the Canary Islands, Turkey, Iran, Cyprus and Palestine. The eastern form P. o. arenarius (Pallas, 1775) is found in Kazakhstan, western China and northern Pakistan. It is a partial migrant, with central Asian birds moving to Pakistan and northern India in winter.

The black-bellied sandgrouse was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the other grouse-like birds in the genus Tetrao and coined the binomial name Tetrao orientalis. The black-bellied sandgrouse is now placed with 13 other species in the genus Pterocles that was introduced in 1815 by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek pteron meaning "wing" with -klēs meaning "notable" or "splendid".

Two subspecies are recognised: P. o. orientalis (Linnaeus, 1758) – Canary Islands, Iberian Peninsula, Morocco to west Iran P. o. arenarius (Pallas, 1775) – Kazakhstan to south Iran and Afghanistan, east to northwest China... Wikipedia →