Elliot's pheasant
Elliot's pheasant (Syrmaticus ellioti) is a large pheasant native to south-eastern China. Description Males are up to long; they are brown and white with a black throat, chestnut-brown upper parts, white belly, nape and wing bars, red bare facial skin and long rusty-barred whitish tail. Females are smaller, at long; they are rufous brown with a blackish throat, whitish belly and less barred tail. Distribution Elliot's pheasant is endemic to south-eastern China (Guizhou, Hubei, Anhui, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangxi and Guangdong provinces), where it lives in evergreen and mountain forests at altitudes of . Its diet consists mainly of seeds, leaves and berries. Taxonomy Elliot's pheasant was first described in 1872 by Robert Swinhoe, under the name "Phasianus ellioti"; the type material was from Ningpo, Zhejiang province, China. The specific epithet commemorates the American ornithologist Daniel Giraud Elliot; Swinhoe explained his choice thus: "Possessed of so many striking characteristics, it would be easy to find an appropriate name for so marked a species; but on glancing down the list of Pheasants I find that not one bears the name of Elliot; and it strikes me it would be wrong to allow his magnificent work on the subject to close