Greater Prairie Chicken
Prairie chicken ♂ ( Tympanuchus cupido )
The prairie chicken ( Tympanuchus cupido ) is a native to North America species of the subfamily of grouse.
Features
The 40-47 cm tall prairie chicken has a brown - black striped body. The wings also have bright ribbons. The bottom has striped brighter and wider. The primaries are gray, the edges of the fan-shaped tail have a dark brown color. The prairie chicken is built and plump, like all grouse feathered legs and toes. The male has two long spring scruff of the neck at the back. There is a red -orange nub over the eyes. The throat and cheeks are bright, the rest of the head is dark brown. Two large, yellow-orange air sacs are covered by brown, with a subspecies also of black feathers. During mating they are inflated.
The female is lighter overall, so inconspicuous and has held the Schopf only a small collar, similar to the collar chicken. The animal has a black eye-streak; Throat, cheeks are beige. Also, the female has air bags, but much smaller. The thin beak is always brown. The female weighs 770-1020 grams, the male is much more difficult to 990-1360 grams.
Dissemination
The prairie chicken once came numerous before in the prairie regions east of the Rocky Mountains. Due to hunting and habitat loss due to conversion of prairie land in agricultural land of the stock is rapidly declining. Although the prairie chicken benefited from the expanded food offering that offer him farmland. However, for nesting and rearing of the chicks, it is absolutely dependent on original prairie.
Today, it happens only in the central United States, with distribution focus in the states of Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Dakota, where it competes with the suspended pheasant. The males stay in the winter at their leks, females migrate to the south.
Subspecies
There are besides the nominate two subspecies:
- Large prairie chicken ( T. c. Pinnatus )
- Attawari prairie chicken ( T. c. Attawari )
The nominate, the heath hen ( T. c. Cupido ) is extinct at the beginning of the 1930s. The heath hen came in in the overgrown with bushes, barren heaths of the coastal region of New England, from the southernmost tip of New Hampshire to northern Virginia before and was hunted intensively by the first European settlers, schließiich what led to the collapse of the population. When heath hen it could also have been a own way. For the other two subspecies would belong to a species ( T. pinnatus ).
Previously the Small prairie chicken ( T. pallidicinctus ) were classified as fourth subspecies here.
Way of life
Food
The prairie chicken fed on previously by seeds, grasses and shoots. Due to the conversion to pasture the prairie grasses were rare, and the type had to resort to the grown man crops such as soybeans and wheat. In winter, prairie chickens and feed mainly on buds, hazel nuts and acorns.
Reproduction
During mating males occupy the arenas that they defend hard against other males. Many animals use for years, the same Balzplätze. The prairie chickens perform a characteristic courtship dance: they put on the Crest and the tail, so the white under plumage is visible, inflate the air bags and turn in a circle while they stomp their feet on the ground. They encounter from howling, dull tones that sound as if someone is blowing over the opening of a glass bottle. The animals take over again a horizontal posture and tilt your head to the floor. Because of this "Indian dance " they are a popular ornamental poultry. The female lays 8-12 light brown, speckled eggs in a bowl. The incubation period lasts for 25 days, only the female looks after the initially yellow-brown pups. They are fed with insects, especially grasshoppers. The young birds stay 6-8 weeks in the mother.