Overview
The black-breasted buttonquail is a plump quail-shaped bird of predominantly marbled black, rufous and pale brown, marked prominently with white spots and stripes, and white eyes. Like other buttonquails, the female is larger and more distinctively coloured than the male. It has a black face and chin, sprinkled with fine white markings. The black markings and large size of the female and the dark markings and whitish face of the male distinguish the species from the painted buttonquail.
Taxonomy
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Bird
- Family
- Turnicidae
- Genus
- Turnix
- Species
- melanogaster
Habitat
Rainforests.
Diet
Seeds and insects.
Behavior
The female makes a low-pitched oom call. The usual sex roles are reversed in the buttonquail genus, as the larger and more brightly-coloured female mates with multiple male partners and leaves them to incubate the eggs. One or two broods are probably laid each year; the nest is a shallow depression scraped out of the leaf litter and ground, lined with dried vegetation. Three or four shiny grey-white or buff eggs splotched with dark brown-black and lavender are laid measuring 28 mm x 23 mm.
Hunting
Hunted indigenously.
Conservation Status
Listed as Near Threatened by IUCN.