FreeLists / tn-bird / [tn-bird] Re: Attwater's Prairie-Chicken

["Troy Ettel" <Troy.Ettel@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Susan:
The Attwater's Prairie Chicken is a subspecies of the greater prairie chicken.  
Taxonomists tell us that three subspecies of greater prairie chickens formerly 
roamed North American Prairies:

Greater Prairie Chicken Tympanuchus  cupido pinnatus
Attwater's Prairie Chicken Tympanuchus cupido attwateri
Heath Hen Tympanuchus cupido cupido 

The Heath Hen formerly occupied coastal barrens in the mid-Atlantic states.  
The last Heath Hen disappeared from Martha's Vineyard in the 1930's I believe.

The Attwater's Prairie Chicken occupied the vast coastal tallgrass prairie 
region of Texas and Louisiana.  Texas was the only place in the world where 
pinnatus and attwateri might have overlapped as both occurred there and have 
been collected from adjacent counties.  Texas probably had more greater prairie 
chickens historically (including pinnatus and attwateri) than The Prairie 
State, Illinois.  Today less than 50 in Texas, about 100 in Illinois.

The Greater Prairie Chicken was the bird of the great tallgrass praire.  It was 
very widespread, occurring eastward into Ohio southward into Arkansas and 
(likely) Tennessee northward into Minnesota and the Dakotas and possibly into 
the Canadian provinces, and westward at least into Texas and eastern Colorado.  
This subspecies is the only one still hunted in some states.   


Troy Ettel
State Ornithologist
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency
P.O. Box 40747
Nashville, TN 37204
(615) 781-6653
Troy.Ettel@xxxxxxxxxxx

>>> fordcordrey@xxxxxxxxxxx 03/05/02 12:14PM >>>

I just finished an article in National Geographic about the Attwater's
Prairie-chicken, described as a Texas grouse whose population has recently
plummeted to 50 individuals. I am not familiar with this species, can anyone
shed any light on the taxonomy of this bird? Perhaps I know it by another
name. (A prairie-chicken by any other name.....)

Susan Ford
Cookeville, TN


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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
     Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society
          web site at http://www.tnbirds.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
    TN-Bird Net Owner: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN
        jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx      (423) 764-3958
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