Alectoris rufa
The red-legged partridge is a gamebird in the pheasant family Phasianidae of the order Galliformes, gallinaceous birds. It is sometimes known as French partridge, to distinguish it from the English or grey partridge. The genus name is from Ancient Greek alektoris a farmyard chicken, and rufa is Latin for red or rufous.

Pierre Dalous · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- red-legged partridgePBDB
- Sits inside
- AlectorisPBDB
- Diet
- granivorePBDB, for Phasianidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Phasianidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Phasianidae
- Mass
- 20.1 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At most 774 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 774 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
12 occurrences of Alectoris rufa on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
12 occurrences- Pleistocene33%
- Holocene67%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Alectoris rufa and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Alectoris rufa and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
246 taxa- Cervus elaphus5 sites
- Coturnix coturnix5 sites
- Oryctolagus cuniculus5 sites
- Sus5 sites
- Capra hircus4 sites
- Equus4 sites
- Lynx pardinus4 sites
- Ovis4 sites
- Perdix perdix4 sites
- Pyrrhocorax graculus4 sites
- Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax4 sites
- Turdus4 sites
- Ursus arctos4 sites
- Accipiter gentilis3 sites
- Athene noctua3 sites
- Bos taurus3 sites
- Canis familiaris3 sites
- Canis lupus3 sites
- Capreolus capreolus3 sites
- Cerastoderma edule3 sites
- Cetacea3 sites
- Columba livia3 sites
- Columba oenas3 sites
- Corvus corone3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Alectoris rufa, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
11 references- Upper Pleistocene and Holocene fossil avifauna from Moleta cave (Mallorca, Balearic Islands)2
- Animal remains from 17th century Carnide, Lisbon, Portugal.1
- Entre veados e ovelhas, um dromedário e uma baleia de permeio: arqueozoologia em Mértola desde a Idade do Ferro até ´Época Medieval1
- The bird assemblage from the Middle Palaeolithic level I of Arbreda Cave: A taphonomic story1
- Pleistocene birds of Gruta da Furninha (Peniche-Portugal): a paleontological and paleoenvironmental aproach1
- Estudo zooarqueológico dos restos recuperados no estabelecimento industrial romano do Creiro (Arrábida, Setúbal)1
- A fauna da Idade do Ferro e da Época Romana de Monte Molião (Lagos, Algarve): continuidades e rupturas na dieta alimentar1
- Faunal remains from Alcáçova de Santarém, Portugal1
- Presence of the Northern Bald Ibis Geronticus eremita (L.) during the Holocene in the Ardèche valley, southern France1
- Prospecciones y excavaciones arquelógicas en el alto valle del Jarama (Valdesotos, Guadalajara, Castilla-La Mancha)1
- La grotte de l'Observatoire à Monaco1
Each of the 12 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Alectoris rufa
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Pierre Dalous
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Alectoris rufa was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itAlectoris through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)