Birds
Plains-wanderer
Pedionomus torquatus · also called plains-wanderer
The plains-wanderer looks like a small, dumpy quail wandering through the Australian grass. It is nothing of the sort. It is the only living member of its entire family, the last survivor of a lineage that traces back to the ancient southern supercontinent, which makes it one of the most evolutionarily distinct birds on the planet — and it is now Critically Endangered.
Overview
The plains-wanderer lives in the native grasslands of inland eastern and southern Australia, now mostly in the Riverina of New South Wales. It is a small ground bird, 15–19 cm long and buff-coloured, cryptically patterned; the larger female has a black-and-white spotted collar and a rufous breast that the male lacks.
Not a quail
Despite its quail-like look and life, it is the sole species of the Pedionomidae, and its closest living relatives are the seedsnipes of South America — a legacy of Gondwana. Carrying so much history with no close relatives, it ranks at the top of lists of evolutionarily distinct, endangered birds.
Reversed roles
The female is the larger, showier, territory-holding sex and mates with several males; each male incubates and raises the chicks alone.
A hider, not a flier
Alarmed, it stands on tiptoe to peer over the grass, then freezes or runs, and flies only reluctantly with its legs dangling — which makes it very hard to survey. It needs grassland that is about half bare ground, so its presence signals a healthy grassland.
Status
The plains-wanderer is Critically Endangered, with mature birds numbering in the hundreds to low thousands and falling. Most of Australia’s temperate native grassland has been ploughed or over-grazed, and drought, foxes, and cats add pressure. Conservation combines grassland management at key sites with a captive-breeding safeguard across several Australian zoos.
Plains-wanderer: common questions
Why is the plains-wanderer considered so important?
It is one of the most evolutionarily distinct birds in the world. Most birds have many close relatives, so if one species is lost, similar species and much of its unique biology persist. The plains-wanderer has no close relatives at all; it is the last twig of a very old branch of the bird family tree, most closely linked to the South American seedsnipes across a gap of tens of millions of years. Losing it would erase an entire lineage. Combined with the fact that it is Critically Endangered, this puts it at the top of conservation priority lists that weigh how much unique evolutionary history a species represents.
How are the sexes different, and why is that unusual?
In the plains-wanderer the usual pattern is flipped. The female is noticeably larger and more colourful, with a striking black-and-white spotted collar and a chestnut breast shield, while the male is smaller and plain. The female holds and defends territory, and she may mate with several males over a season. Each male then takes sole charge of a clutch, incubating the eggs and leading and protecting the chicks after they hatch. This kind of role reversal, with competitive females and caregiving males, is rare among birds and is also seen in some button-quails, jacanas, and phalaropes.
Why is it Critically Endangered?
Its habitat has been transformed and continues to shrink. The plains-wanderer depends on lightly grazed or ungrazed native grassland with a very particular sparse structure, and the great majority of Australia's temperate native grasslands have been ploughed for crops, sown to introduced pasture, or grazed and fertilised into a dense sward the bird cannot use. What remains is fragmented, and its quality swings with rainfall, so populations can crash in drought and struggle to recover. Introduced foxes and cats prey on the ground-nesting birds, and the small total population makes the species vulnerable to any run of bad years.
What is being done to save it?
Conservation works on two fronts. In the wild, agencies and landholders manage key grassland sites to keep the vegetation at the right openness, often through carefully timed light grazing, and control foxes and cats. As an insurance policy, a captive-breeding programme has been set up across several Australian zoos and sanctuaries, which has succeeded in breeding the species and holds a genetic reserve that could be used to reinforce or re-establish wild populations. Because the bird is so hard to detect, monitoring increasingly uses trained detection dogs and night surveys.