Order
Galliformes
Family
Odontophoridae
Genus
Dendrortyx
 
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Version 1.0

This is a historic version of this account.  Current version

SPECIES

Long-tailed Wood-Partridge Dendrortyx macroura

Gilberto Chávez-León
Version: 1.0 — Published August 13, 2010

Appearance

Distinguishing Characteristics

The Long-tailed Wood-Partridge is one of the largest New World quails (Odontophoridae). The main distinguishing features are its long tail; chestnut median stripes on breast and back feathers edged with gray; erectile crest tipped with russet to Mikado brown spots; black forehead, supraorbital line, ear coverts, chin and upper throat; white superciliary and malar stripes; and bright geranium pink bare parts. Male Long-tailed Wood-Partridge captured in Cerro Cuiritzerán,
Zacán, Michoacán, Mexico. 2 June 1999. © Gilberto Chávez-LeónJuvenile and adult plumages differ, the former with white shaft streaks on the back and underparts. Juveniles attain adult-like plumage when about half-grown (Howell and Webb 1995). The sexes are similar as adults, the only difference is that the female may averages smaller in size with a shorter tail (Johnsgard 1973).

Similar Species

The genus Dendrortyx includes three allopatric species, two of them endemic to Mexico and one endemic to Meso America: the Long-tailed Wood-PartridgeBarranca del Cupatitzio National Park, Uruapan, Michoacán, Mexico. Automatic camera, 8 June 2005, 0824 h. © Gilberto Chávez-León. (D. macroura [Jardine and Selby 1828]), which is the largest and heaviest of the New World quails; the Bearded Wood-Partridge (D. barbatus [Gould 1846]); and the Buffy-crowned Wood-Partridge (D. leucophrys [Gould 1844]), respectively. These three species are the only quails with a long tail (Johnsgard 1973). The black ear coverts, forehead and throat, and the prominent white superciliary and malar stripes differentiates the Long-tailed from the two other wood-partridges.

The Bearded Wood-Partridge inhabits the fragmented montane evergreen forests (sensu Stotz et al. 1996; this vegetation type name is used in this account instead of "cloud forest" or "bosque mesófilo de montaña" used by several authors) and along the Atlantic slope, from southeastern San Luis Potosí through Queretaro, Hidalgo and Puebla to central Veracruz and northern Oaxaca (Eitniear et al. 2000). It is the rarest of the wood-partridges and is considered at risk of extinction because of habitat loss. Local overlap with the Long-tailed occurs in the Pico de Orizaba and Cofre de Perote volcanoes in eastern Puebla and Veracruz (Leopold 1959). This situation suggests that possible competition may occur there, but otherwise little if any competition from other New World quails is likely (Johnsgard 1988). The Bearded Wood-Partridge lacks the striking black and white color pattern on the head and neck: instead, the crest is cinnamon brown, and the throat and superciliary are light gray. Also, the remiges of the Bearded (visible in flight) are more rufous-brown, compared to the gray-brown of the Long-tailed (Howell and Webb 1995).

The Buffy-crowned Wood-Partridge is a Central American species distributed in temperate forests from southern Chiapas south to Costa Rica. The buffy to whitish superciliary, forehead and throat, together with a black bill easily serve to separate it from the other two wood-partridges (Johnsgard 1988).

Detailed Description

Tail, with 12 rectrices, is long (may be as long as the wing). For a very detailed description of the plumage, see Ridgway and Friedmann (1946). The following summary is based on Johnsgard (1973) and Carroll (1994):

11 April 2008, Atoyac-Paraiso Road in the Sierra Madre de Sur of Guerrero, Mexico, © Dan Forster

Adult (sexes similar): The forehead, sides of head, throat and foreneck are black with two white streaks, one above and one below the eye. Coloration overall is chestnut and gray. Breast bluish gray; upper back chestnut with wide gray margins; lower back is mottled with olive brown, black, and tawny; and with pale markings on wing and tail. Crown and short crest black with distal buff streaks or spots.

Juvenile: Spotted on the underparts with dark brown, and has less chestnut on breast. Warner (1959) described the juvenile plumage in greater detail, indicating the differences from adults: "Although the specimens at hand are in early postnatal molt, enough of the juvenile plumage shows both dorsally and ventrally to indicate that this plumage is similar in basic pattern to that in other Odontophorinae. The most obvious characters of this plumage are in the pattern of the breast, belly and back where the white shaft streaks expand near the tips, forming large V's or broad white bars at the end of the feathers. The rest of the feather is blackish in the middle and browner at the base, the brown extending farther out on the lateral side of the feathers of the back. The overall impression, then is of a spotted or barred young bird which is very different from the adults."

Hatchling: "Broad forehead and superciliaries chamois darkening to honey yellow over the eyes; middle of crown, occiput and nape auburn; entire upperparts of body and wings Brussels brown, obscurely banded on the dorsolateral portions of the body with dusky clove brown; chin, throat, and underpart of the body cream buff, brightest on the chin and throat and becoming tinged with tawny-olive on the sides and flanks which merge into the Brussels brown of the back; thighs pale Brussels brown" (Ridgway and Friedmann 1946, for subspecies striatus).

Molts

No information on molts in Long-tailed Wood-Partridge. The common pattern in Odontophoridae (at least in the better-known species, in the genera Oreortyx, Callipepla, Colinus, and Crytonyx) is for molts to follow the Complex Alternate Strategy (Howell 2010), with a formative plumage and a very limited prealternate molt. The preformative molt in these species of New World quail is complete except for the two outer primaries and the greater primary coverts (Petrides 1942, Pyle 2008, Howell 2010).

Bare Parts

Iris: Glaucous, color 80 of Smithe (1975), in live specimens from Michoacán; the Munsell notation for this color is 6.0Y 6.0/1.0, indicating that it has a yellowish green hue, slightly light, with a low grayish intensity. Specimens at the Colección Nacional de Aves, Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (CNAV-IBUNAM) are labeled: "ojos amarillos", "café", "brown", "café claro", or "Van Dike brown".

This species is easily recognized by the brightly colored orbital ring, bill and tarsi. The color of these bare areas in 2 live and 5 freshly killed birds from Michoacán matches the Geranium Pink, number 13, notation 6.25R 5.0/14.0, of Smithe (1975). The bill and feet are yellowish in dried skins of new-born D. m. striatus (Ridway and Friedman 1946).

Two photographs taken in Michoacán with an automatic photo-trap camera show adult individuals with atypical yellow bare parts instead of Geranium Pink. Both pictures were taken 100 m apart in a time lapse of 6 days, indicating that they probably represent the same individual (G. C-L. pers. obs).

Long-tailed Wood-Partridge with atypical bare parts. Barranca del Cupatitzio National Park, Uruapan, Michoacán, Mexico. Automatic camera, 12 June 2005, 1605 h.  © Gilberto Chávez-León. Atypical Long-taile Wood-Partridge, probably the same individual in the photo to the left. Barranca del Cupatitzio National Park, Uruapan, Michoacán, Mexico. Automatic camera, 6 June 2005, 1052 h. © Gilberto Chávez-León.

Measurements

Total length: 305-381 mm (Johnsgard 1973); 290-370 mm (Carroll 1994). However, specimens collected by the author and at museum collections indicate a larger total length: two males of  D. m. macroura at the Colección Nacional de Aves, Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (IBUNAM:CNAV), are labeled 422 and 417 mm; one male of D. m. griseipectus is labeled 405 mm (G. C-L. pers. obs., subspecies identified following Ridgway and Friedman 1946). Four specimens of D. m. striatus collected by the author had a mean 387.5 mm (range 364-408 mm).

Linear measurements (all from Ridgway and Friedman 1946):

Nominate macroura

Males (n=4)

Wing length: mean 164.7 mm (range 163-166 mm)

Tail length: mean 163 mm (range 157-169 mm)

Tarsus length: mean 50.7 mm (range 47.1-52.8 mm)

Culmen (from base): mean 20.5 mm (range 19.7-21.4 mm)

Females (n=3)

Wing length: mean 157 mm (range 155-158 mm)

Tail length: mean 149.3 mm (range 147-151 mm)

Tarsus length: mean 51.4 mm (range 49.2-53.3 mm)

Culmen (from base): mean 19.3 mm (range 18.9-19.5 mm)

Subspecies striatus:

Males (n=21)

Wing length: mean 154.7 mm (range 143-167 mm)

Tail length: mean 147.1 mm (range 132-175 mm)

Tarsus length: mean 49.5 mm (range 45.3-52 mm)

Culmen (from base): mean 20.8 mm (range 18.7-22.4 mm)

Females (n=12)

Wing length: mean 151.6 mm (range 147-159 mm)

Tail length: mean 138.3 mm (range 131-146 mm)

Tarsus length: mean 48.5 mm (range 46.3-50 mm)

Culmen (from base): mean  20.8 mm (range 19.5-21.7 mm)

Four D. m. striatus collected by the author:

Males (n=3)

Wing length: mean 162.7 mm (range 159-166 mm)

Tail length: mean 156 mm (range 151-163 mm)

Tarsus length: mean 57.3 mm (range 54.6-60.1 mm)

Culmen (from base): mean 19.4 mm (range 18.5-21.2 mm)

Females (n=1)

Wing length: 159 mm

Tail length: 138 mm

Tarsus length: 52.9 mm

Culmen (from base): 18.7 mm

Mass:

Both sexes 350-465 g (Leopold 1959). Males 433-450 g, females 374-446 g (Johnsgard 1988). Two specimens collected by the author in Nuevo Parangaricutiro, Michoacán: one male 342 g, one female 266 g.

Recommended Citation

Chávez-León, G. (2010). Long-tailed Wood-Partridge (Dendrortyx macroura), version 1.0. In Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/nb.ltwpar1.01