Facts About Crested argus
The crested argus is a large and spectacular peafowl-like species of bird in the pheasant family with dark-brown-spotted black and buff plumage, a heavy pink bill, brown irises and blue skin around the eyes. The head has two crests; the hind crest, which extends down the occiput, is erected when alarmed and during intentional behaviors including pair bonding and courtship displays. The male has a broad and greatly elongated tail of twelve feathers. The tail covert of the male is the longest of any bird and is believed to contain the longest feathers to occur in a wild bird; the Reeves's pheasant has tail feathers of similar length but which are considerably narrower. The tail coverts measure up to 1.73 m in length, giving the bird a total length of 1.9–2.39 m.
Although traditionally treated as a single species with two subspecies, it has long been suspected that a species pair is involved and recent evidence, albeit using the controversial Tobias criteria, also supports treating each subspecies as a separate species. If adopted, the split will result in two monotypic species: Malaysian crested argus Rheinardia nigrescens of the central Malaysian Isthmus, and Vietnamese or Annam crested argus Rheinardia ocellata, of the Annamite mountain range. The two forms differ significantly in plumage, display and vocalisations and both are threatened by human activity.
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