Silver Pheasant - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

Like other pheasants, the Silver Pheasant was placed in the genus Phasianus when described by Linnaeus in 1758. Since then it – or at least some of the subspecies associated with it – have been placed either in Euplocamus or Gennceus. Today all major authorities place the Silver Pheasant in Lophura.

The Silver Pheasant is closely related to the Kalij Pheasant and the two are known to hybridize. The placement of the taxa lineata and crawfurdi has been a matter of dispute, with some treating them as subspecies of the Kalij Pheasant and others as subspecies of the Silver Pheasant. They have greyish legs as in the Kalij Pheasant, but their plumage is closer to that of some subspecies of the Silver Pheasant. Additionally, as the Silver Pheasant, lineata and crawfurdi are found east of the Irrawaddy River, a major zoogeographic barrier, while all other subspecies of the Kalij Pheasant are found west of the river (oatesi, a subspecies of the Kalij Pheasant, has sometimes been reported as occurring east of that river, but this is incorrect). Based on mtDNA, it was recently confirmed that lineata and crawfurdi should be regarded as subspecies of the Kalij Pheasant.

With these two as subspecies of the Kalij Pheasant, the Silver Pheasant has 15 subspecies. However, while some subspecies are relatively distinctive, several others (at least rufipes, occidentalis, ripponi, jonesi, beaulieui, nycthemera and fokiensis) are likely part of a cline, which, if confirmed, would result in them being junior synonyms of the nominate subspecies. Several other taxa, for example andersoni, are now considered invalid by all major authorities.

Once considered a very rare species, the Imperial Pheasant is actually a naturally occurring hybrid between the Silver Pheasant and the Vietnamese Pheasant.