Many species in the avian order Galliformes have bare (or ‘‘fleshy’’) regions on their head, ranging from simple featherless regions to specialized structures such as combs or wattles. Sexual selection for these traits has been demonstrated in several species within the largest galliform family, the Phasianidae, though it has also been suggested that such traits are important in heat loss. Thes...

Rates of innovative foraging behaviours and success on problem-solving tasks are often used to assay differences in cognition, both within and across species. Yet the cognitive features of some problem-solving tasks can be unclear. As such, explanations that attribute cognitive mechanisms to individual variation in problem-solving performance have revealed conflicting results. We investigated i...

Pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) are commonly killed on UK roads, presenting a threat to motorists and a loss to the game shooting industry. Pheasants may be inherently susceptible, or the recent increase in their artificial rearing and release may have exacerbated the situation, either through population increases or because artificial rearing has altered movement behaviour. We compared intra-a...

Abstract Knowing the ecology of game species is important to define sustainable hunting pressure and plan management actions aimed maintain viable populations. Common pheasant ( Phasianus colchicus ) one main gamebird in Europe North America, despite its native range extending from Caucasus Eastern China. This research environmental variables shaping spatial distribution male pheasants estimate...

Ring-necked Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) chicks exposed to a hen incubation vocalization during the final week of incubation showed stronger attraction to feeding and caution calls than expected by chance when tested one, three and five days post-hatching. Control chicks incubated in silence did not differ from chance in response to the caution call. Largest differences between experimental a...