Copper Pheasant

Identification

It is a large pheasant with a rich coppery chestnut plumage, yellowish bill, brown iris, and red facial skin. The female is a brown bird with greyish brown upperparts and buff barred dark brown below. The male has short spurs on its grey legs, while the female has none. Males are between 87.5 centimetres (34.4 in) and 136 centimetres (54 in) long, including the tail, while the female is between 51 centimetres (20 in) and 54 centimetres (21 in) (subspecies scintillating copper pheasant, scintillans). Juveniles have similar plumage to the females. The plumge of the chicks is, overall, chesnut, with some darker patches of brown on the back of the neck and cream-coloured feathers on the face. Darker stripes of cream and dark brown run along their face and neck.

Taxonomy

The copper pheasant was described in 1830 by Coenraad Temmerick as Phasianus soemmerringii. It was named for the German scientist Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring, while the subspecies S. s. ijimae is named for Japanese zoologist Isao Ijima. It was reclassified into the Syrmaticus genus in 1914 by William Beebe, despite the differences between the males, because he saw a high number of similarities between females of the genus. However, based on the reports of interbreeding between the copper pheasant and the green pheasant (Phasianus versicolor) in Nobusuke Takatsukasa's 1943 pamphlet, Studies of the Galli of Nippon, the Ornithological Society of Japan moved the bird back into the Phasianus genus. In the same book, Takatsukasa also split the copper pheasant into two species and eliminated all subspecies. Those, as well as other taxonomic changes he proposed, were termed by a United States Fish and Wildlife Service report as "not in accordance with sound systematic practice". The copper pheasant is sometimes still referred to as Phasianus soemmerringii in Japanese literature.<p>There are five recognized subspecies of copper pheasant:<p>Both S. s. ijimae and S. s. scintillans were initially described as distinct species.<p>Pleistocene-era Syrmaticus fossils in Japan have been classified as S. soemmerringii, but this identification is disputed.

Scientific name

Syrmaticus soemmerringii

Authority

(Temminck, 1830)

Order

Galliformes

Family

Phasianidae

Genus

Syrmaticus

Range and habitat

The copper pheasant is distributed in and endemic to the hill and mountain forests of the Honshū, Kyūshū, and Shikoku islands at elevations of up to 1,800 metres (1.1 mi). It typically confines itself to deciduous forest floors with extensive vegetation. However, members of the species also lives in conifer forests. They often nest on the edges of grasslands. It naturally occurs only south of the Blakiston's Line, and this species' distribution was originally cited as evidence for the line's existence.<p>Copper pheasant populations have been established on Hokkaido and Sado Island.

Migration

Resident species

Behavior

The bird is not heavily vocal, only occasionally making a "kuk-kuk"-like call when breeding or threatened. These pheasants are known to sunbathe, especially when living in grasslands. They roost in trees, and are a non-migratory bird.<p>The copper pheasant's mating season occurs between March and July, with the exact month depending local climate. During this time, males perform their wing-whirring display and fight other males in an attempt to secure a mate. It is unknown if the species is monogamous. Male copper pheasants exhibit aggressive behaviour in captivity, sometimes killing their mates It is usual for this species to be bred in captivity by means of artificial insemination.<p>Copper pheasants typically nest on the ground, but have also been recorded nesting in trees. They often build their nests in hollows sheltered by fallen trees. Captive birds have a clutch of ten to twenty eggs, while wild birds have a clutch of seven to thirteen eggs. The cream-coloured or tan eggs take twenty five days to hatch, and the chicks are able to walk within hours pf hatching. After all the chicks have hatched, they abandon the nest and stay at their mother's side until adulthood. Occasionally, the male pheasant is seen near his offspring and mate, but young are raised primarily by their mother. When threatened, she will either attack potential predators or attempt to distract them by feigning injury herself. Young birds reach maturity in less than a year. <p>Their diet consists mainly of insects, insect larvae, worms, crabs, berries, and acorns, especially those from the Castanopsis, Machilus, Cleyera, and Castanea trees. Adults eat a substantial amount of leaf and fern matter, while the young mostly consume insects.<p>The copper pheasant serves as an important source of prey to Japanese populations of the golden eagle and Hodgson's hawk eagle. It is susceptible to infection by the heterakis gallinarum parasite.

Conservation

Population trend

declining