Tragopan blythii

The male pheasant has a body length of 53-59 cm and a weight of 1650 grams. The longitudinal lines on the forehead, top of the head, and neck are black; the horns of the flesh are blue; the bare part of the face is dark blue or golden; the flesh skirt under the neck is also yellow, with light blue edges; the side of the head, back of the neck, upper back, and upper chest Others are red, the rest of the upper body feathers are dark brown, the belly is smoky gray, and the whole body is densely covered with white and chestnut eye-shaped spots. The ones on the upper body are smaller and the ones on the lower body are larger. The tail is black with irregular horizontal spots. The upper body of the female bird is dark brown with black markings; the lower body is brown with dark brown and gray markings. Their irises are brown; the corners of their mouths are brown; their legs and feet are pink or brown.
Size measurement: weight 1650 grams; body length 530-680 mm; bill peak (measured from f

Distributed in northeastern India, northwestern Myanmar, Bhutan and China (southern Tibet, southeastern Tibet and northwestern Yunnan).
It lives in mountain evergreen broad-leaved forests at an altitude of 2000-3000 meters, especially in moist evergreen broad-leaved forests with well-developed understory vegetation. Sometimes it goes down to low mountain areas around 2000 or 1500 meters to hibernate in winter.

The Blyth's Tragopan is called Blyth's Tragopan in English, and has two subspecies.

The Blyth's Tragopan is alert by nature, good at running, and generally rarely flies. When frightened, they often run fast or hide in dense forests and bushes, and only fly away when they have to. But the flight is not long-lasting, and they fall down after each flight. They often move alone or in pairs, and often gather in small groups of 2-5 or even 10 during the day in winter. Most of the time, they move and forage on the ground under the forest, and sometimes go up to the trees to forage, and roost on the trees at night.

The gray-bellied tragopan is a resident bird. It builds its nest on the tree and likes to hide in the bushes or grass under the forest. It often moves in small groups of 4-5. It mainly feeds on plant buds, seeds, and berries, and also eats insects, small frogs and other animal food. The male bird has a loud and challenging call, like gnau, gnau. When showing off, it makes a call of gock...gock...gock, similar to the double-horned hornbill.

The breeding season of the gray-bellied tragopan is from April to June. Usually, it enters the breeding season in early April. When the male bird is in heat, the pair of green-blue fleshy horns on its head are constantly inflated and expanded, gradually extending from the head and extending, and the blue fleshy horns under the throat are gradually expanding and swelling. At this time, the male bird first strides with its head held high, nodding its head little by little, then half-squatting, with the raised pair of fleshy horns and half-opened wings shaking slightly, and the tail also spreads out like a fan, the fleshy horns are inflated, constantly bouncing and flying forward, and when it reaches the climax, the whole body is almost stiff, standing still for several seconds. Then the fleshy horns and fleshy horns begin to shrink, the head slowly retracts the fleshy horns under the neck, and the fleshy horns slowly retract until the next heat. When the female bird is in heat, it often walks back and forth constantly, making a "wa, wa" sound. Usually, the male bird will come to the male bird when it reaches the climax of estrus, and then the male bird will immediately jump onto the back of the female bird and hold the female bird's feathers in its mouth for mating. The nest is built on a tree in the forest. The nest is rough and bulky. It is mainly composed of branches and grass leaves. Each nest lays 2-5 eggs, mostly 3-4 eggs. The color of the eggs is light yellow or grayish yellow, with a few brown spots. The long diameter is 5.3-5.9 cm and the short diameter is 4.1-4.5 cm.

The two subspecies of the gray-bellied tragopan are very rare in the wild, and the number of the nominate subspecies is less than 5,000. It is even rarer in China. Only one male bird specimen was collected in Gaoligong Mountain, Yunnan in the 1980s and is collected in the specimen room of the Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Little is known about its wild situation.

The main endangered factors of the gray-bellied tragopan are deforestation of habitats, egg picking and nest destruction, hunting, etc. Because the total number of the species is considered to be very small, and it is in a scattered and severely fragmented range, this small subgroup of species is in a vulnerable position. Large-scale hunting and continued habitat destruction will inevitably aggravate this decline.

       On December 30, 2016, staff of Gaoligongshan National Nature Reserve discovered a group of gray-bellied tragopans in the reserve. This is the first time that this species has been discovered in China in more than 20 years. This discovery is of great significance to the research and protection of this species.

Listed as a rare species in the "China Red List of Endangered Animals·Birds".

Listed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2013 ver 3.1 - Vulnerable (VU).

Listed in Appendix I of the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

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

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