Buff-breasted Button-quail
Turnix olivii
Australia's Threatened Species Category
Critically Endangered
Listed since: Mon Apr 08 2024 14:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
IUCN's Threatened Species Category
Critically Endangered
Listed since: 11/18/2021
Population trend: Unknown
Other names: None
Priority Species? No
The Australian government's Threatened Species Action Plan 2022-2032 selected over 100 priority species derived from consultation with threatened species experts and the wider community. While all species are important, focusing on a limited number of species can help target effort and resources so that outcomes can be achieved, measured and shared.
Description
The buff-breasted button-quail is a large, plump and pale-eyed button-quail and is one of Australia�s least known birds. It is the only Australian bird species never to have been photographed alive and is possibly extinct. The buff-breasted button-quail is endemic to north-eastern Queensland. The type specimen was collected at an unspecified location �near Cooktown,� on the Cape York Peninsula in June 1899 with sightings since the 1920s are restricted to the Atherton Tablelands region and the southern Cape York Peninsula.
Threats
The lack of information on the Buff-breasted Button-quail makes it difficult to determine the degree to which any potential threatening processes are affecting the species. It has been speculated that they may have been eliminated from much of its former range because of changes in the suitability of habitat caused by grazing, and by changes to fire regimes which promote invasion by woody weeds and has been identified as being highly sensitive to climate change due to its small population size and relatively high degree of ecological niche specialisation.