Species group · Birds
WAnimals has 2 species of sandgrouse, in the family Pteroclidae.
Ranges calculated from the profiles that record the figure, not from all 2.
Each one has its own full profile. This group does not replace them: it brings them together.
No species documented in this group is genuinely at risk according to the IUCN, with the data available today.
Recorded in 25 countries. The ones with the most species in the group:
It soaks its belly feathers in water to carry it to its chicks kilometres away.
Like the black-bellied sandgrouse, the male carries water to the chicks by soaking his belly feathers and flying tens of kilometres back to the nest: the chicks drink straight from his plumage.
Its flocks come to drink at the same pools and at the same time every day, and that predictability has made the few remaining steppe watering points critical places for its conservation.
The male carries water to the chicks by soaking his belly feathers, whose microstructure holds liquid like a sponge: he flies tens of kilometres back to the nest and the chicks drink straight from his plumage.
It comes to drink at fixed times and always at the same pools, behaviour so predictable that it made the bird an easy target for hunting and that today leaves it very vulnerable to the disappearance of steppe pools.