Barred buttonquail

The barred buttonquail or common bustard-quail (Turnix suscitator) is a buttonquail, one of a small family of birds which resemble, but are closely related to, the true quails. This species is resident from India across tropical Asia to south China, Indonesia and the Philippines.

At Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, India

Barred buttonquail
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Class: Aves
Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Turnicidae
Genus: Turnix
Species:
T. suscitator
Binomial name
Turnix suscitator
(Gmelin, JF, 1789)

Taxonomy

The barred buttonquail was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the grouse like birds in the genus Tetrao and coined the binomial name Tetrao suscitator.[2] Gmelin cited the English ornithologist Francis Willughby who in 1678 had described and illustrated the "Indian Quail of Brontius" from the Island of Java.[3] The barred buttonquail is now placed in the genus Turnix that was introduced in 1791 by French naturalist in Pierre Bonnaterre.[4][5] The genus name is an abbreviation of the genus Coturnix. The specific epithet suscitator is Latin and means "awakening".[6]

Sixteen subspecies are recognised.[5]

Description
A female of race taigoor

A typical little buttonquail, rufous-brown above, rusty and buff below. Chin, throat and breast closely barred with black. Female larger and more richly coloured, with throat and middle of breast black. The blue-grey bill and legs, and yellowish white eyes are diagnostic, as are also the pale buff shoulder-patches on the wings when in flight. Absence of hind toe distinguishes Bustard and Button quails from true quails. Pairs, in scrub and grassland. The calls are a motorcycle-like drr-r-r-r-r-r and a loud hoon- hoon-hoon.

Distribution and habitat
Dust bathing

The species occurs throughout India up to elevations of about 2500 m in the Himalayas, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines and most of Southeast Asia. There are four geographical races that differ somewhat in colour.[7] It is found in most habitats except dense forest and desert, in particular, scrub jungle, light deciduous forest and farmlands.

Breeding
ssp. powelli

Buttonquails differ from true quails chiefly in the female being polyandrous[8] The female is the brighter of the sexes, initiates courtship and builds the ground nest. She fights with other females for the possession of a cock, uttering a loud drumming drr-r-r-r-r as a challenge to rival hens and also to announce herself to a cock. Eggs when laid are left to be incubated by the cock who also tends the young, which can run as soon as they are hatched. The hen goes off to acquire another mate, and perhaps yet another, and so on, though evidently only one at a time. They breed practically throughout the year, varying locally. The nest is a grass-lined scrape or depression in scrub jungle or crops, often arched over by surrounding grass. The usual clutch comprises 3 or 4 greyish white eggs, profusely speckled with reddish brown or blackish purple.

Conservation

Widespread and common throughout its large range, the barred buttonquail is evaluated as being of Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of threatened species.

References
  1. BirdLife International (2016). "Turnix suscitator". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T22680549A92865610. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22680549A92865610.en. Retrieved 11 November 2021.
  2. Gmelin, Johann Friedrich (1789). Systema naturae per regna tria naturae : secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1, Part 2 (13th ed.). Lipsiae [Leipzig]: Georg. Emanuel. Beer. p. 763.
  3. Willughby, Francis (1678). Ray, John (ed.). The Ornithology of Francis Willughby of Middleton in the County of Warwick. London: John Martyn. p. 171; Plate 29.
  4. Bonnaterre, Pierre Joseph; Vieillot, Louis Pierre (1823). Tableau encyclopédique et méthodique des trois règnes de la nature: Ornithologie (in French). Vol. Part 1. Paris: Panckoucke. pp. lxxxii, 5-6. Although the title page bears the date of 1823 the section (livraison) containing the description was published in 1791. See: Dickinson, E.C.; Overstreet, L.K.; Dowsett, R.J.; Bruce, M.D. (2011). Priority! The Dating of Scientific Names in Ornithology: a Directory to the literature and its reviewers. Northampton, UK: Aves Press. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-9568611-1-5.
  5. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (August 2022). "Buttonquail, thick-knees, sheathbills, plovers, oystercatchers, stilts, painted-snipes, jacanas, Plains-wanderer, seedsnipes". IOC World Bird List Version 12.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  6. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. pp. 393, 375. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  7. "Turnix suscitator (barred buttonquail)". Animal Diversity Web. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  8. Ali, Salim; Daniel, J.C. (1983). The Book of Indian Birds, Twelfth Centenary edition. New Delhi: Bombay Natural History Society/Oxford University Press.
  • Birds of India by Grimmett, Inskipp and Inskipp, ISBN 0-691-04910-6

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