The Reeves’s Pheasant (Syrmaticus reevesii) is a large galliform game bird.

The Reeves’s Pheasant has gold, white, black, and reddish feathers, grey legs, and bare red skin around its eyes. Its beak is pale-cream, and its head is white with a narrow black band across its brown eyes. It has a very long, silvery-white tail with chestnut-brown bars. The female is brown with a blackish crown, a buff face, and a barred greyish-brown tail.

Reeves’s Pheasant

It measures 210 centimetres (83 inches) in length. Its tail is about 240 centimetres (94 inches) in length. It is considered to have the longest tail feathers of any bird in the world.

The Reeves’s Pheasant is native to China. It prefers evergreen forests close to woodlands.

It eats plants, seeds, and cereals.

The Reeves’s Pheasant builds a nest on higher ground. The female lays a 7–14 eggs, which hatch after 24–25 days.

Reeves’s Pheasant

Reeves’s Pheasant

Reeves’s Pheasant

[Location of photographs: Tbilisi Zoo, Georgia]

Photographer: Martina Nicolls

Martina Nicolls: SIMILAR BUT DIFFERENT IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM