Family: Numididae – guineafowl
Conservation status: Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
The helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris) is the best known of the guineafowl bird family, Numididae, and the only member of the genus Numida. It is native to Africa, mainly south of the Sahara, and has been widely introduced into the West Indies, Brazil, Australia and Europe (e.g. southern France).
Taxonomy
In the early days of the European colonisation of North America, the native wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) was confused with this species. The word meleagris, Greek for guineafowl, is also shared in the scientific names of the two species, though for the guineafowl it is the species name, whereas for the turkey, it is the name of the genus and (in inflected form) the family.
Subspecies
There are nine recognized subspecies:
N. m. coronata (Gurney, 1868) – Gurney’s helmeted guineafowl – Type locality restricted to Uitenhage. Occurs in eastern and central South Africa and Western Swaziland.
N. m. galeatus (Pallas, 1767) – West African guineafowl – western Africa to southern Chad, central Zaire, and northern Angola
N. m. marungensis (Schalow, 1884) – Marungu helmeted guineafowl – south Congo Basin to western Angola and Zambia
N. m. meleagris (Linnaeus, 1758) – Saharan helmeted guineafowl – eastern Chad to Ethiopia, northern Zaire, Uganda and northern Kenya
N. m. mitrata (Pallas, 1764) – tufted guineafowl – Terra Typica “Madagascar” (introduced or erroneous). Occurs in Tanzania to Zambia, Botswana, northern South Africa, Eastern Swaziland and Mozambique.
N. m. damarensis (Roberts, 1917) – Damara helmeted guineafowl – Terra Typica: Windhoek. Occurs from arid southern Angola to northern Namibia and Botswana north of 26°S
N. m. reichenowi (Ogilvie-Grant, 1894) – Reichenow’s helmeted guineafowl – Kenya and central Tanzania
N. m. sabyi (Hartert, 1919) – Saby’s helmeted guineafowl – northwestern Morocco
N. m. somaliensis (Neumann, 1899) – Somali tufted guineafowl – northeastern Ethiopia and Somalia
