Wildlife
Pheasants, partridges and their relatives are a family of birds, whose members range in size from the massive domestic turkey to the tiny quail. Chickens, grouse and peacocks number among its members.
Scientific name: Phasianidae
Rank: Family
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Valley life
The Himalayan Kali Gandaki River valley is the deepest in the world.
The Himalayan Kali Gandaki River valley is the deepest in the world.
Inner chicken
Ex-commercial hens struggle to find their inner chicken.
Ex-commercial hens struggle to find their inner chicken.
The shading illustrates the diversity of this group - the darker the colour the greater the number of species. Data provided by WWF's Wildfinder.
Red-legged partridge (species)
Ptarmigan (species)
Wild turkey (species)
Peacock (species)
Pheasant (species)
Eurasian grouse
Temminck's tragopan (species)The Phasianidae is a family of birds which consists of the pheasants and partridges, including the junglefowl (including chicken), Old World Quail, francolins, monals and peafowl. The family is a large one, and is occasionally broken up into two subfamilies, the Phasianinae, and the Perdicinae. Sometimes additional families and birds are treated as being in this family as well; the American Ornithologists' Union includes Tetraonidae (the grouse), Numididae (guineafowls), and Meleagrididae (turkeys) in Phasianidae as subfamilies.
The earliest fossil records of phasianids date to the late Oligocene epoch, about 30 million years ago.
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