Mikado Pheasant

Syrmaticus mikado

Endemic

VOTE FOR TAIWAN'S NATIONAL BIRD

國鳥候選者  背景資料

            Male is a large, elegant, blackish, long-tailed pheasant with distinct glossy purple-blue edges to feathers of mantle, breast and rump, forming conspicuous scalloped pattern against sooty-black feather centers.  Pointed tail black with white bars.  Wings black with conspicuous white bar and white tips to secondaries and tertials.  Bare orbital skin is crimson.  The female is smaller, mottled gray below, brown with mottling of reddish and black with white streaks above.  Iris, brown; bill, grayish; legs, greenish.

            Uncommon resident of central mountains.  Inhabits forest with dense undergrowth and bamboo on steep mountain slopes 1,800–3,300 m and possibly higher.

            Shy and secretive; keeps to dense forest in lower conifer and mixed forest zone, or bamboo forests and scrub on steep slopes.  Varied diet includes fern shoots, berries, flower buds, and insects.  The nest is made of bamboo stalks and dry leaves on the trunk or in branches of a fallen tree, or on the ground.  Clutch size; 5–10 eggs; incubation 28 days.

            Mikado Pheasant is considered Near-threatened.  Heavy hunting pressure was a problem for it in the past.  Declining outside of protected areas due to habitat loss, but its high-altitude habitats are relatively secure.

            Local common names include:  black pheasant, long black-tailed pheasant, sea pheasant, king of the mist.

References:  Endemic Species of Taiwan, compiled by Greenland Ecology Conservation Association of R.O.C.

                       www.gio.gov.tw/info/ecology/English