Elevating Gamebirds

New francolin and spurfowl taxonomy

- ROB LITTLE

Gamebirds have been domest­icated for food production and for ornamental aviculture for centuries, yet they remain a mostly under­appreciated group of birds. This might be because they can be seen along roadsides, in open farmlands, urban fringes and even within towns and gardens. The gamebirds have rep­ resentatives on all continents except Antarctica and, together with the ducks and geese, form the basal group among the Neoaves. The Galliformes comprise nine major groups of terrestrial game­ birds: megapodes, cracids, guineafowls, grouse, turkeys, pheasants, partridges (including francolins and spurfowls), and Old World and New World quails.

Studies combining the genetics and anatomy of living species and fossils suggested that pheasants, partridges, quails, spurfowls and francolins are not natural evolutionary groups, but rather mosaics of evolutionarily unrelated species. Even the best­known gamebird and the wild ancestor of the domestic chicken, the Junglefowl Gallus gallus, was moved on the gamebird evolution­ ary tree from being with the pheasants to a branch that includes a mix of ‘fran­ colins’ and ‘partridges’.

Traditionally, the largest group of African gamebirds, the francolins, was classified with partridges in the tribe Perdicini within the family Phasi­ anidae, although the only anatomical feature that supports this grouping is that they all have 14 tail feathers. The 41 species of francolins, 36 from Af­ rica and five from Asia, were placed in a single genus,