button-quail

Buttonquail
Small Buttonquail
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Charadriiformes Family: Turnicidae GR Gray, 1840
Distribution of the Buttonquails.
Genera
Turnix  Ortyxelos

The buttonquails or hemipodes are a small family of birds which resemble, but are unrelated to, the true quails.

Buttonquail were traditionally placed in Gruiformes or Phasianidae (the crane and pheasant orders). The Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy elevated them to ordinal status as the Turniciformes and basal to other Neoaves either because their accelerated rate of molecular evolution exceeded the limits of sensitivity of DNA-DNA hybridization or because the authors did not perform the appropriate pairwise comparisons or both. Morphological, DNA-DNA hybridization and sequence data (Paton et al., 2003; Fain & Houde, 2004, Paton & Baker 2006) indicate that turnicids correctly belong to the shorebirds (Charadriiformes). They seem to be an ancient group among these, as indicated by the buttonquail-like Early Oligocene fossil Turnipax and the collected molecular data (Paton & Baker 2006).

This is an Old World group, which inhabits warm grasslands.

These are small drab running birds, which avoid flying. The female is the brighter of the sexes, and initiates courtship. The male incubates the eggs and tends the young.

Species

All but one (the Quail-plover, Ortyxelos meiffrenii) of the 15 species are in the genus Turnix.

• Small Buttonquail, or Andalusian Hemipode, Turnix sylvatica
• Philippine Buttonquail, Turnix worcesteri
• Sumba Buttonquail, Turnix everetti
• Hottentot Buttonquail, Turnix hottentotta
• Yellow-legged Buttonquail, Turnix tanki
• Barred Buttonquail, Turnix suscitator
• Madagascar Buttonquail, Turnix nigricollis
• Spotted Buttonquail, Turnix ocellata
• Black-breasted Buttonquail, Turnix melanogaster
• Painted Buttonquail, Turnix varia
• Chestnut-backed Buttonquail, Turnix castanota
• Red-chested Buttonquail, Turnix pyrrhothorax
• Red-backed Buttonquail, Turnix maculosa
• Little Buttonquail, Turnix velox
• Buff-breasted Buttonquail, Turnix olivei

References

• Fain, Matthew G. & Houde, Peter (2004): Parallel radiations in the primary clades of birds. Evolution 58(11): 2558-2573. doi:10.1554/04-235 PDF fulltext

• Paton, Tara A. & Baker, Allan J. (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): 657–667. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2006.01.011 (HTML abstract)

• Paton, T. A.; Baker, A. J.; Groth, J. G. & Barrowclough, G. F. (2003): RAG-1 sequences resolve phylogenetic relationships within charadriiform birds. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 29: 268-278. doi:10.1016/S1055-7903(03)00098-8 (HTML abstract)

• Sibley, Charles Gald & Ahlquist, Jon Edward (1990): Phylogeny and classification of birds. Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn.

External links

• Buttonquail videos on the Internet Bird Collection
• cyberquail

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