Endangered
Ludwig's Bustard
Neotis ludwigii
Ludwig's Bustard is a bird in the family Otididae (order Otidiformes) — Neotis ludwigii, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
The bird's face and front neck are coloured grey-brown while the back of the neck and face is white. The nape of the neck is coloured a dull orange. Females and juveniles vary from the male adults by their smaller size and slightly lighter coloured front neck and face.
The Ludwig's bustard can weigh from 3 to 7.3 kg (6.6 to 16.1 lb), with a mean of 6.3 kg (14 lb) for the much larger male and 3.4 kg (7.5 lb) for the female. Length ranges from 76 to 85 cm (30 to 33 in) in females and 80 to 95 cm (31 to 37 in) in males.
Published measurements include mass about 5.1.
Range and habitat
Their range is typically confined to the Western side of Southern Africa, in Western South Africa, Namibia, and sometimes in Botswana. The total range of the species is roughly 380,000 km2 (146,719 sq mi). Even so, there does appear to be significant evidence that these birds do prefer to live in modified habitats such as agricultural fields and pastures.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
Ludwig's bustards have a varied diet. As such, not much information is available for the reproductive behaviors of Ludwig's bustards, but they have been reported to breed during the month of March in Namibia.
In crisis
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix II. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Ludwig's Bustard 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 Ludwig's Bustard, Wikidata item Q890352. 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.
