Gallina de las praderas menor

The Lesser Prairie-Chicken is a charismatic species best known for its energetic and bizarre courtship dance. Though cryptically colored overall, males have several outlandish decorations that they display during their performances: large fleshy mustard-yellow “eyebrows” (also referred to as “eye-combs”), which they enlarge; red-orange air sacs on the sides of the throat which they inflate like balloons; and tufts of long dark feathers on either side of the neck, which they erect over their heads like long ears or horns. In dance posture, a male will lean over so that his body is parallel with the ground, extending his wing feathers and raising his tail vertically to display the pure white feathers beneath. He rapidly stamps his feet, and produces characteristic “gobbling” or “booming” calls that he amplifies and modulates with his inflated throat sacs. It is this aspect of their display that gives both the Lesser and Greater Prairie-Chickens their genus name, Tympanuchus. The word comes from the Greek word tympanon (drum) and the Latin word nucha (neck). “Drum neck” refers to these unique resonance organs, which they use to blast their booming calls out across the prairie.

Another fascinating feature of this bird’s natural history is its use of “leks” — traditional performance grounds — for their breeding displays. Lesser Prairie-Chicken leks are sparsely vegetated arenas where dozens of birds display simultaneously, starting before sunrise and continuing for several hours. The leks themselves may be used for decades by multiple generations of birds. Females come to watch the dancing displays and the aggressive interactions between males to assess their options and choose which male will sire their young. As with most polygynous lekking species, only a few dominant males will mate with the majority of females.

Both Lesser Prairie-Chickens and the very similar Greater Prairie-Chickens have earned themselves a unique place in the culture and mythology of the North American Plains. For Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains, prairie-chickens are important spiritual figures, serving as messengers between humans and the gods and figuring prominently in folklore, mythology, and religion. Many Plains tribes perform sacred dances invoking the male prairie-chickens’ displays. However, prairie-chickens were acknowledged for other behaviors as well, including their habit of abruptly taking off from the ground with a startlingly loud burst of flight. In fact, the Osage word for the prairie-chicken was Ushiṭsithe, meaning “the startler.”

The Lesser Prairie-Chicken has lost more than 90 percent of its historic population and now numbers only 28,000 individuals. The decline has primarily been driven by habitat loss and fragmentation — the Lesser Prairie-Chicken’s range has shrunk by 92 percent since the 1800s with the steady expansion of agriculture and urban development.

Birds around the world are declining, and many species are facing urgent, acute threats. Species with strict habitat requirements and limited geographic ranges, like the Lesser Prairie-Chicken, are especially vulnerable to the continued destruction of grassland habitat due to development. Though heavy pressure from hunting by colonial settlers had a huge impact, even causing the extinction of the closely related Heath Hen (Tympanuchus cupido cupido) of the eastern states, regulations have largely put a stop to overharvest of the remaining prairie-chickens. However, habitat loss continues to be an imminent threat.

Aves como el gallo de las praderas menor necesitan nuestra ayuda para superar las amenazas que enfrentan. En ABC, nos inspira la maravilla de las aves y nos impulsa la responsabilidad de encontrar soluciones para afrontar sus mayores desafíos. Con la ciencia como base, y con la inclusión y la colaboración como base de todo lo que hacemos, tomamos medidas audaces para proteger a las aves de todo el continente americano.

The Lesser Prairie-Chicken is about the size and shape of a football. Both sexes are mostly barred with alternating cinnamon brown and buffy white, paler below and darker above. The male can be distinguished by his colorful adornments, including the reddish-orange air sacs on his neck, the elongated feather tufts on either side of the neck, and the bright yellow inflatable skin patches above his eyes. The tail, primaries, and feather tufts on males are mostly a dark chocolate brown.

Male Lesser Prairie-Chickens produce their characteristic display sounds with the combined action of their vocal organ (the syrinx) and their inflated neck sacs. These calls have a peculiar bubbling, gobbling quality. Both sexes also give a nasal, chicken-like Cackle Call, as well as a variety of other vocalizations.

Lesser Prairie-Chickens favor native shortgrass prairie on sandy soils, interspersed with clumps of sagebrush and low-growing thickets of shinnery oak (Quercus havardii).

• Leks are sparsely vegetated and usually located on hills
• En la temporada no reproductiva, busca semillas en campos agrícolas y se refugia en la vegetación ribereña.

Lesser Prairie-Chickens are most easily spotted on their leks, where males gather to display, and females come to watch and decide who will sire their offspring of the season. Though leks are not large and can be quite crowded with 10–20 males displaying, each male stakes out his own tiny territory a few meters across and defends it aggressively. And location matters — prime positions are in the center of the lek, and these are occupied by the dominant males.