The barred buttonquailorcommon bustard-quail (Turnix suscitator) is a buttonquail, one of a small family of birds which resemble, but are not closely related to, the true quails. This species is resident from India across tropical Asia to south China, Indonesia and the Philippines.
The barred buttonquail was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the grouse like birds in the genusTetrao and coined the binomial nameTetrao suscitator.[2] Gmelin cited the English ornithologist Francis Willughby who in 1678 had described and illustrated the "Indian Quail of Brontius" from the Island of Java.[3] The barred buttonquail is now placed in the genus Turnix that was introduced in 1791 by French naturalist in Pierre Bonnaterre.[4][5] The genus name is an abbreviation of the genus Coturnix. The specific epithet suscitatorisLatin and means "awakening".[6]
A typical little buttonquail, rufous-brown above, rusty and buff below. Chin, throat and breast closely barred with black. Female larger and more richly coloured, with throat and middle of breast black. The blue-grey bill and legs, and yellowish white eyes are diagnostic, as are also the pale buff shoulder-patches on the wings when in flight. Absence of hind toe distinguishes Bustard and Button quails from true quails. Pairs, in scrub and grassland. The calls are a motorcycle-like drr-r-r-r-r-r and a loud hoon- hoon-hoon.[citation needed]
The species occurs throughout India up to elevations of about 2500 m in the Himalayas, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines and most of Southeast Asia. There are four geographical races that differ somewhat in colour.[7] It is found in most habitats except dense forest and desert, in particular, scrub jungle, light deciduous forest and farmlands.
Buttonquails differ from true quails chiefly in the female being polyandrous[8] The female is the brighter of the sexes, initiates courtship and builds the ground nest. She fights with other females for the possession of a cock, uttering a loud drumming drr-r-r-r-r as a challenge to rival hens and also to announce herself to a cock. Eggs when laid are left to be incubated by the cock who also tends the young, which can run as soon as they are hatched. The hen goes off to acquire another mate, and perhaps yet another, and so on, though evidently only one at a time. They breed practically throughout the year, varying locally. The nest is a grass-lined scrape or depression in scrub jungle or crops, often arched over by surrounding grass. The usual clutch comprises 3 or 4 greyish white eggs, profusely speckled with reddish brown or blackish purple.
