Himalayan monal

The Himalayan monal (Lophophorus impejanus), also called Impeyan monal and Impeyan pheasant, is a pheasant native to Himalayan forests and shrublands at elevations of . It is part of the family Phasianidae and is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. It is the national bird of Nepal, where it is known as the danphe or danfe, and state bird of Uttarakhand, India, where it is known as monal. The scientific name commemorates Lady Mary Impey, the wife of the British chief justice of Bengal, Sir Elijah Impey. It is a relatively large-sized pheasant. The bird is about long. The male weighs up to and the female . The adult male has multicoloured plumage throughout, while the female, as in other pheasants, is more subdued in colour. Notable features in the male include a long, metallic green crest, coppery feathers on the back and neck, and a prominent white rump that is most visible when the bird is in flight. The tail feathers of the male are uniformly rufous, becoming darker towards the tips, whereas the lower tail coverts of females are white, barred with black and red. The female has a prominent white patch on the throat and a white strip on the tail. The first-year male and the juvenile resemble the female, but the first-year male is larger and the juvenile is less distinctly marked. The Himalayan monal's native range extends from Afghanistan and Pakistan through the Himalayas in India, Nepal, southern Tibet and Bhutan. In Pakistan, it is most common in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and has also been recorded in Kaghan, Palas Valley and Azad Kashmir. In India, it has been recorded throughout the Indian Himalayan Region from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh. It lives in upper temperate oak-conifer forests interspersed with open grassy slopes, cliffs and alpine meadows between , where it is most common between . It descends to in the winter. It tolerates snow and digs through it to obtain plant roots and invertebrate prey. The diet of the Himalayan monal consists primarily of tubers, nuts, tender leaves, shoots, insects and other invertebrates.