Silver Pheasant
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[Photo] Silver Pheasant (Lophura nycthemera). Location: Bronx Zoo, New York - Author: User:Stavenn (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Stavenn)

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The Silver Pheasant, Lophura nycthemera is a large, approximately 125cm long, white pheasant with bare red facial skin, red legs and glossy black below. The male is adorned with white, long, patterned tail and black dropping crest on its crown. At least two years is needed to attain full male plumage. The female is an olive brown with black-tipped crest.

The Silver Pheasant inhabits to the mountain forests of mainland Southeast Asia and China. There are seventeen subspecies of Silver Pheasant, distributed from east Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, China to the island of Hainan.

The nominate subspecies Lophura nycthemera nycthemera of southeastern China and northern Vietnam is the largest and whitest race. While the southern subspecies have various amount of grey or black markings and shorter tail.

Widespread and a common species in most of its habitat range, the Silver Pheasant is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

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