Chordates • Earth.com

White eared-pheasant

(Crossoptilon crossoptilon)

Description

The white eared pheasant tends to fly a great deal more than their close relatives,such as the Brown eared pheasant (Crossoptilon mantchuricum) and the blue eared pheasant (Crossoptilon auritum).All three ecological species are capable of hovering or volplaning over deep snow.They do this with the aid of their great,wide tails.Eared pheasants move across deep snow by whirring their wings and fluttering close to the ground,and supporting their weight on their retrices.Eared pheasant flight was often described as poor by the hunter collectors of the 18th century who used dogs to flush the birds from the ground for shooting.Eared pheasants do not waste their energy on flying when quadrupeds prey on them because they have adapted many defensive escape behaviors that do not require flight.They have a high aptitude for sustained flight—movements that only take them a few hundred yards at a time but in the snowy seasons this is very useful.This ability to cover large areas by flight is reminiscent of ptarmigans,sage grouse,and Syrmaticus pheasants,all of which inhabit snowy regions and use sustained flight for feeding during winter months.characteristic of these species and C.crossoptilon is the lack of a prominent tailing wing notch.

Taxonomic tree:

Domain:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum:
Class: Aves
Order:Galliformes
Family:Phasianidae
Genus:Crossoptilon
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