Double-banded sandgrouse
| Double-banded sandgrouse | |
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| A pair in Kruger National Park, South Africa. The male is on the left. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Pterocliformes |
| Family: | Pteroclididae |
| Genus: | Pterocles |
| Species: | P. bicinctus |
| Binomial name | |
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Pterocles bicinctus Temminck, 1815 |
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The double-banded sandgrouse (Pterocles bicinctus) is a species of ground-living bird in the family Pteroclididae. It is found in arid parts of southern Africa.
There are three subspecies: P. b. ansorgei is found in south west Angola, P. b. bicinctus is found in Namibia, Botswana and the north west of Cape Province and P. b. multicolor is found in Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Transvaal.
A moderate sized bird with a plump body, the double-banded sandgrouse has a small pigeon-like head and long wings and tail. The general colour of the plumage is light brown with darker mottling and rows of whitish specks. The male is distinguished by having a conspicuous black and white band on its forehead and a chestnut throat area delineated by another black and white band. Both sexes have an area of bare yellow skin surrounding their eye and the male has an orange beak. The female is smaller and duller in colour. The juvenile resembles the female.
The double-banded sandgrouse is found in Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It has a preference for short trampled grass beside roads and tracks, gravel patches, tussocky grassland and recently burned areas of scrub with green shoots starting to develop. It is also seen in areas of scanty vegetation beneath scattered Terminalia sericea and Burkea africana trees and in scrubby mopane woodland. It is less common than burchell's sandgrouse (Pterocles burchelli) and Namaqua sandgrouse (Pterocles namaqua), both of which have an overlapping distribution in southern Africa.
The diet consists largely of seeds including acacia, red pea (Requenia sphaerosperma), Tephrosia, Cyperus, blackjack (Bidens bidentata) and hairy thorn-apple Datura innoxia.
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