Western capercaillie

The western capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus), also known as the Eurasian capercaillie, wood grouse, heather cock, cock-of-the-woods, or simply capercaillie ˌkæpɚˈkeɪl(j)i, is a heavy member of the grouse family and the largest of all extant grouse species. The heaviest-known specimen, recorded in captivity, had a weight of . Found across Europe and the Palearctic, this primarily-ground-dwelling forest grouse is renowned for its courtship display. The bird shows extreme sexual dimorphism, with males nearly twice the size of females. The global population is listed as "least concern" under the IUCN, although the populations of central Europe are declining and fragmented, or possibly extirpated. The western capercaillie is one of two living species under the genus Tetrao, which also includes the lesser-known black-billed capercaillie. The word capercaillie is a corruption of the Scottish Gaelic capall coille (khahpəɫ̪ˈkhɤʎə) "Horse of the woodland". The Scots borrowing is spelled capercailzie (the Scots use of z represents an archaic spelling with yogh and is silent; see Mackenzie (surname)). The current spelling was standardised by William Yarrell in 1843. The genus name is derived from the Latin name of a game bird, probably the black grouse. The species name, urogallus, is a Neo-Latin partial homophone of German Auerhuhn. The species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae under its current binomial name. Its closest relative is the black-billed capercaillie, Tetrao parvirostris, which breeds in the larch taiga forests of eastern Russia and parts of northern Mongolia and China. The western capercaillie has 8 recognized subspecies: T. u. cantabricus (Castroviejo, 1967) - northwestern Spain T. u. aquitanicus (Ingram, 1915) - Pyrenees of Spain and France T. u. crassirostris (C.L. Brehm, 1831) - Alps to Estonia T. u. rudolfi (Dombrowski, 1912) - Bulgaria to southwestern Ukraine T. u. urogallus (Linnaeus, 1758) - Scandinavia and Scotland T. u. karelicus (Lönnberg, 1924) - Finland and Karelia T.

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Western capercaillie

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