Critically Endangered
Jerdon's Courser
Rhinoptilus bitorquatus
Jerdon's courser is a nocturnal bird belonging to the pratincole and courser family Glareolidae endemic to India.
Appearance
It is an unmistakable compact courser, with two brown breast-bands. It has a yellow base to the black bill, a blackish crown, broad buff supercilium, and an orange-chestnut throat patch. A narrow white crown stripe runs on top of the head.
Published measurements include mass about 164.5.
Range and habitat
It is endemic to southern India, where it is principally known from southern Andhra Pradesh. It has an extremely limited geographical range being known from the Godaveri river valley near Sironcha and Bhadrachalam, and from the Cuddapah and Anantpur areas in the valley of the Pennar River. In Maharashtra it was reported at "24 km east of Sironcha, near the Godavari river, three birds, undated (Blanford 1867, 1869), and sometime in the 20-year period before 1935 (D'Abreu, 1935)".
It is currently known only from the Sri Lankamalleswara Wildlife Sanctuary, and Sri Penusila Narasimha Wildlife Sanctuary where it inhabits sparse scrub forest with patches of bare ground.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Habits
Jerdon's courser is a nocturnal bird belonging to the pratincole and courser family Glareolidae endemic to India.
In crisis
With the rising population, there was increased livestock pressures and firewood extraction. In addition, extensive quarrying threatens the habitat. In December 2005, the only known location for the species was threatened by the Telugu Ganga project, a scheme to supply water to the city of Chennai.
The area has however continued to be threatened by illegal construction work and activity related to a project proposed to link the rivers of India.
Jerdon's Courser is Critically 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 Jerdon's Courser, Wikidata item Q1267955. 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.
