Bornean Peacock-Pheasant

Appearance

The pheasant is up to 50 cm long, rufous brown and black spotted, with an elongated crest and nape feathers, black below and bare red skin around bluish iris eye. The breast sides are metallic blue-green, bordering the white throat and central upper breast. Its twenty-two tail feathers are decorated with large blue-green ocelli, that may be spread fan-like in display.

Range and habitat

Endemic to Borneo, where it has been observed throughout the country, although its exact distribution is unknown. It inhabits lowland forests along the upper reaches of rivers, especially between 100 and 500 m above sea level, and appears to be absent from humid and swampy forests (O'Brien & Kinnaird 1997). This elusive bird is endemic to lowland forests of Borneo.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet and breeding

Its diet consists of fruits, seeds, and invertebrates, and is thought to be the source of seasonal movements linked to food availability (O'Brien & Kinnaird 1997). Its presence is particularly noticeable during the breeding season, due to the calls uttered by the males and the arenas they maintain, cleared of leaves, for courtship (Hennache & Ottaviani 2006).

It is currently unknown, but they are likely solitary birds. According to Seitre (2004), who visited the Rezit Sozer breeding farm in Java, it is extremely difficult to keep both members of a pair together outside the breeding season. On the other hand, Kuah (in litt.) breeds Bornean spur-tails in pairs, like other species, and even in trios, without encountering major problems, except for constant infertility when the partners do not get along.

In crisis

Because of ongoing habitat loss, small population size, and limited range, the Bornean peacock-pheasant is evaluated as Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

CITES lists this taxon on Appendix II. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.

Bornean Peacock-Pheasant is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Bornean Peacock-Pheasant, Wikidata item Q835098. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.