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Buttonquail

(Redirected fromTurnicidae)
"Button quail" redirects here. For the species of true quail often known as button quail in aviculture, seeking quail.

Buttonquailorhemipodesare members of a small family ofbirds,Turnicidae,which resemble, but are not closely related to, thequailsofPhasianidae.They inhabit warmgrasslandsinAsia,Africa,Europe,andAustralia.There are 18 species in two genera, with most species placed in the genusTurnixand a single species in the genusOrtyxelos.

Buttonquail
Black-breasted buttonquail(Turnix melanogaster)
Scientific classificationEdit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Turnicidae
Gray, GR,1840
Type species
Tetrao gibraltaricus[1]
Gmelin, 1788
Genera
Distribution of the buttonquails

Buttonquails are small, drab, running birds, which avoid flying. The female is the more richly colored of the sexes. While the quail-plover is thought to be monogamous,Turnixbuttonquails are sequentiallypolyandrous;both sexes cooperate in building a nest in the earth, but normally only the maleincubatesthe eggs and tends the young, while the female may go on to mate with other males.

Taxonomy

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The genusTurnixwas introduced in 1791 by French naturalist inPierre Bonnaterre.[2]The genus name is an abbreviation of the genusCoturnix.[3]Thetype specieswas subsequently designated as thecommon buttonquail.[4]

The buttonquail family, Turnicidae, was introduced in 1840 by the English zoologistGeorge Robert Gray.[5][6]The buttonquails were traditionally placed inGruiformesorGalliformes(the crane and pheasant orders). TheSibley-Ahlquist taxonomyelevated them to ordinal status as theTurniciformesandbasalto otherNeoaveseither because their accelerated rate ofmolecular evolutionexceeded the limits of sensitivity ofDNA-DNA hybridizationor because the authors did not perform the appropriate pairwise comparisons or both. Morphological, DNA-DNA hybridization andsequencedata indicate that turnicids correctly belong to the shorebirds (Charadriiformes).[7][8][9]They seem to be an ancient group among these, as indicated by the buttonquail-likeEarly OligocenefossilTurnipaxand the collected molecular data.[9]

Description

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The buttonquails are a group of small terrestrial birds. The smallest species is thequail-plover,the only species in the genusOrtyxelos,which is 10 cm (3.9 in) in length and weighs only 20 g (0.71 oz). The buttonquails in the genusTurnixrange from 12 to 23 cm (4.7–9.1 in) in length and weigh between 30 and 130 g (1.1–4.6 oz). They superficially resemble the true quails of the genusCoturnix,but differ from them in lacking a hind toe and acrop.The females of this family also possess a unique vocal organ created by an enlarged trachea and inflatable bulb in the esophagus, which they use to produce a booming call.[10]

Breeding

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Buttonquails are unusual in that females are seriallypolyandrous.The nest is a scape on the ground often near overhanging vegetation. The female lays a clutch of 4 or 5 eggs and then looks for a new mate. The male incubates the eggs which hatch synchronously after 12 to 15 days. The precocial chicks leave the nest soon after hatching and are cared for by the male. They can fly at two weeks of age and become independent at four weeks. For the smaller species sexual maturity is reached at three months.[10]

Species

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Family: Turnicidae

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References

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  1. ^"Alcidae".aviansystematics.org.The Trust for Avian Systematics.Retrieved2023-07-26.
  2. ^Bonnaterre, Pierre Joseph;Vieillot, Louis Pierre(1823).Tableau encyclopédique et méthodique des trois règnes de la nature: Ornithologie(in French). Vol. Part 1. Paris: Panckoucke. pp.lxxxii,5-6.Although the title page bears the date of 1823 the section (livraison) containing the description was published in 1791. See:Dickinson, E.C.;Overstreet, L.K.; Dowsett, R.J.; Bruce, M.D. (2011).Priority! The Dating of Scientific Names in Ornithology: a Directory to the literature and its reviewers.Northampton, UK: Aves Press. p. 78.ISBN978-0-9568611-1-5.
  3. ^Jobling, James A. (2010).The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names.London: Christopher Helm. p. 393.ISBN978-1-4081-2501-4.
  4. ^Peters, James Lee,ed. (1934).Check-List of Birds of the World.Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 142.
  5. ^Gray, George Robert(1840).A List of the Genera of Birds: with an Indication of the Typical Species of Each Genus.London: R. and J.E. Taylor. p. 63.
  6. ^Bock, Walter J. (1994).History and Nomenclature of Avian Family-Group Names.Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. Vol. 222. New York: American Museum of Natural History. pp. 112, 178, 237.
  7. ^Paton TA, Baker AJ, Groth JG, Barrowclough GF (2003). "RAG-1 sequences resolve phylogenetic relationships within charadriiform birds".Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.29(2): 268–78.doi:10.1016/S1055-7903(03)00098-8.PMID13678682.
  8. ^Fain, Matthew G. & Houde, Peter (2004)."Parallel radiations in the primary clades of birds"(PDF).Evolution.58(11): 2558–73.doi:10.1554/04-235.PMID15612298.S2CID1296408.Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 2013-04-07.
  9. ^abPaton TA, Baker AJ (2006). "Sequences from 14 mitochondrial genes provide a well-supported phylogeny of the Charadriiform birds congruent with the nuclear RAG-1 tree".Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.39(3): 657–67.doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2006.01.011.PMID16531074.
  10. ^abDebus, S.J.S. (1996)."Family Turnicidae (Buttonquails)".In del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J. (eds.).Handbook of the Birds of the World.Vol. 3: Hoatzin to Auks. Barcelona, Spain: Lynx Edicions. pp. 44–59.ISBN978-84-87334-20-7.
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