Dark Blue With White Crest Vietnamese Pheasant

About the Dark Blue With White Crest Vietnamese Pheasant

Males of the Vietnamese form carry the deep, glossy blue-black plumage of Edwards's Pheasant set off by a short white crest and crimson facial wattles, and are distinguished from the nominate bird by a variable number of white central tail feathers rather than an all-white upper tail. This white-rectrix pattern is now regarded as an unstable trait thrown up by inbreeding in a tiny, fragmented population, so the bird (formerly Lophura hatinhensis) is treated as a variant of the critically rare Edwards's Pheasant rather than a separate species.