Germain's peacock-pheasant (Polyplectron germaini) is a pheasant that is endemic to Indochina. The name commemorates the French colonial army's veterinary surgeon Louis Rodolphe Germain.
The bird is a medium-sized, approximately 60 centimetres (24 in) long, brownish dark pheasant with finely spotted buff, short crest, bare red facial skin, brown iris and purplish-blue ocelli on upperbody plumage and half of its tail of twenty feathers. Both sexes are similar. The female has eighteen tail feathers and is smaller than male.
Due to ongoing habitat loss and limited range, the Germain's peacock-pheasant is evaluated as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It is listed on Appendix II of CITES.
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Note that the molecular clock calibration method used by Kimball et al. (2001) is now known to be inappropriate, yielding far too low estimates in galliform birds.
Kimball, Rebecca T.; Braun, Edward L.; Ligon, J. David; Lucchini, Vittorio & Randi, Ettore (2001): A molecular phylogeny of the peacock-pheasants (Galliformes: Polyplectron spp.) indicates loss and reduction of ornamental traits and display behaviours. Biol. J. Linn. Soc.73(2): 187–198. HTML abstract
