Arborophila crudigularis

The male Taiwan Mountain Quail has a gray forehead, a light reddish brown head to the nape, with black feather shafts; the front of the eye is grayish white, the eye area is black, and the eyelids are chestnut brown; the sides of the head are black, mixed with white; the back of the neck is dark mouse gray with black spots. The back, waist, and tail are generally olive brown with black horizontal stripes; the inner flight feathers have a wide chestnut feather edge, and the innermost flight feathers have black subterminal spots and chestnut tips. The cheeks, throat, and front neck are white; mixed with a few less obvious gray feathers. The undertail coverts are light khaki or white with black horizontal stripes; the bill is black and the feet are red.
The female bird is basically similar to the male bird, except that the throat has a narrow horizontal band mixed with white.
Size measurement: weight 311 grams, body length 200-240 mm, bill peak ♂ 21 mm, ♀ 16 mm; tail ♂ 59 mm, ♀ 47 m

The Taiwan Mountain Quail is a bird native to China, distributed in the mountains of Yilan, Taitung, Hualien and other counties in Taiwan.
It lives in the original broad-leaved forest below 2,500 meters above sea level, mostly active in the undergrowth or grass under the forest, sometimes also appearing in the shrubs and grass at the edge of the forest, and even in the exposed cliffs.

Taiwan Partridge is known as Taiwan Partridge in foreign languages, and has no subspecies.

Taiwan Partridge is good at hiding. Except for the breeding season when it moves in pairs, it usually moves in small groups of 2-3. It moves mostly on the forest floor and roosts on branches at night. Every morning and evening, it often makes a series of clear and loud calls, and the calls get higher and higher. When it reaches the highest point, it will suddenly drop sharply and repeat the call. The sound is like "gulp, gulp... diugu-diugu-", rising higher and higher to a climax and suddenly falling back. Because the call is clear and loud, it can be heard from a long distance, and it mostly calls at fixed times in the morning and evening, which is relatively punctual, so the local people call it "clock bird".

Taiwan Mountain Quail mainly feeds on plant seeds, berries, tender shoots, tender branches, tender leaves, etc., and also eats animal food such as earthworms and insects. When foraging, it often uses its feet to dig food on the ground.

The breeding season of Taiwan Mountain Quail is from May to June, and some of them start breeding as early as March. They build nests on the ground near the base of mountain forests, using natural pits on the ground or a small pit dug by the female bird. The nests are often covered by lush bushes or understory plants and are not easy to find, but sometimes they also build nests in places where the understory plants are sparse and not very hidden. The nests are then covered with a few thin orange branches and fallen leaves. Sometimes they are also placed in the cracks of rocks. Each nest lays 6-8 eggs, which are oval, white and shiny, with dark cloud spots. The size of the eggs is 40×30 mm. The incubation period is 24 days. The female bird is mainly responsible for incubation, and the male bird is responsible for vigilance. Soon after hatching, the chicks can move with the parents.

The main reasons for the endangerment of the Formosan Mountain Quail are two aspects: "Hunted for food: Because it is easy to raise and has delicious meat, it has become a bird that game shops are willing to purchase, so it faces considerable hunting pressure. Habitat destruction: forest destruction caused by pesticides, timber production and expansion of cultivation."

Due to the active intervention of environmental protection organizations in Taiwan, the recovery of ecology and populations, in 2014, the distribution range of the Formosan Mountain Quail expanded, the population increased, and it was no longer close to the critical value of vulnerable and endangered species survival (distribution area or fluctuation range less than 20,000 square kilometers, habitat quality, population size, distribution area fragmentation), and the population trend was stable, so it was evaluated as a species without survival crisis.

Listed in the "List of Terrestrial Wildlife with Important Economic and Scientific Research Value under State Protection" (item 94) issued by the State Forestry Administration of China on August 1, 2000.

Listed in the "Red List of Endangered Species of the World Conservation Union" (IUCN) ver3.1: 2016-Least Concern (LC).

Listed in the second level of China's "List of National Key Protected Wildlife" (February 5, 2021).

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