Over the years I have featured on my blog all kinds of animals that could be described as real life Pokemon.
And this one is probably the one that fits the description perfectly 馃槀
Let me start with the YouTube short that first introduced me to the species
And another one
Amazing, right? 馃槃
Commonly known as Cabot's tragopan, this is a pheasant found in south-east China. It's scientific name is Tragopan caboti, while other common names it comes by are the Chinese tragopan and the yellow-bellied tragopan.
Much like other birds, the species exhibits sexual dimorphism and only makes look as cool as the birds on the videos above whereas females tend to be meh
The male grows to a length of about 60 cm (24 in) and a weight of around 1.4 kg (3 lb) while the female is about 10 cm (4 in) shorter and weighs around 0.9 kg (2 lb). The head of the male is black with reddish-orange streaks on either side and on the neck and similar-coloured bare skin on the cheeks and around the eye. Below the beak dangle blue and orange decorative, inflatable wattles and there are a pair of fleshy blue "horns" over the eyes. The upper parts of the body are reddish-brown, with large buff markings and the underparts are straw-coloured. The female is altogether a less-colourful bird. source
Male individual (public domain, via wikipedia)
Here's a quick video of a female individual
Yeah, not so impressive
Unfortunately, this is yet another beautiful animal negatively impacted from human activity
Cabot's tragopan is assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being a "vulnerable species". This is because it is estimated that there are fewer than ten thousand individuals and that the number of birds is decreasing. The main threat it faces are loss of habitat as natural forest is converted to agricultural land or plantations of conifers and bamboo.
Other than its amazing looks I can't find anything else really interesting about the species so I will leave you with a final video.
Feel free to visit the wiki links provided above if you are curious and want to learn more about it!
Damn, what a magnificent bird! I wonder if it tastes good. It probably does!