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Fowl-like Birds: Order Galliformes Members of the Order Galliformes are terrestrial, chicken-like birds with short, rounded wings, a well-developed keel, and sturdy legs with four toes. Most galliform birds are cryptically colored, patterned in black, gray, and brown, but among the true pheasants, the males and sometimes the females are clad in reds, yellows, silver, and other bright colors. In the peacocks, large members of the pheasant group, the upper tail coverts are greatly lengthened and bear large, iridescent eyespots; these great trains are erected during display. The hind toe of pheasants (Phasianidae) and guineafowl (Numididae) is elevated and not in contact with the ground, but the hind toe of megapodes (Megapodiidae) and curassows (Cracidae) is on the same level as the front toes. The bill is short and more or less conical in most species, with an arched culmen and with the tip of the upper mandible overlapping the lower mandible. Many members of the Family Phasianidae have spurs on the tarsus; in the grouse, the tarsi and sometimes the toes are feathered. The turkeys have bare heads, ornamented with wattles. Fowl-like birds typically produce large clutches of eggs and precocial, downy young. Young megapodes are fully feathered and capable of flight when they emerge from their mound nests, the result of unique incubation using heat from the sun, decaying compost, or volcanoes rather than a parent. |
Figure A–2 Fowl-like birds: (1) Lady Amherst's Pheasant (Phasianidae); (2) Red Junglefowl (Phasianidae); (3) Great Curassow (Cracidae); (4) Vulturine Guineafowl (Numididae); (5) Sage Grouse (Phasianidae). |
Order/Family |
Members |
Distribution |
Genera |
Species |
Megapodiidae |
Moundbuilders |
Australasia, Malaysia |
7 |
22 |
Cracidae |
Guans, curassows |
Neotropics |
11 |
55 |
Numididae |
Guineafowl |
Africa |
4 |
6 |
Odontophoridae |
New World quails |
North and South America |
10 |
34 |
Phasianidae |
Pheasants and allies |
Nearly worldwide |
52 |
182 |
Relationships