Жолақты түймеқұс: сипаттамасы мен таралуы

Species of bird

The barred buttonquail or common bustard quail (Turnix suscitator) is a buttonquail, one of a small family of birds which resemble, but are not closely related to, the true quails. This species is resident from India across tropical Asia to south China, Indonesia and the Philippines.

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. Gmelin cited the English ornithologist Francis Willughby who in 1678 had described and illustrated the "Indian Quail of Brontius" from the Island of Java. The barred buttonquail is now placed in the genus Turnix that was introduced in 1791 by French naturalist in Pierre Bonnaterre. The genus name is an abbreviation of the genus Coturnix. The specific epithet suscitator is Latin and means "awakening". Sixteen subspecies are recognised. It is found in most habitats except dense forest and desert, in particular, scrub jungle, light deciduous forest and farmlands.

Buttonquails differ from true quails chiefly in the female being polyandrous 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.

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.