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Le Francolin de Djibouti
INTRODUCTION
The Djibouti francolin is a forest dwelling gamebird,approximately partridge-sized,endemic to Djibouti and restricted to well-vegetated areas of the Goda and Mabla massifs.It is one of the least known species of African birds. The first specimen was collected on 22 February 1952 by Captain Albospeyre,the military commander of the Cercle de Tadjoura,who passed it to Colonel Chédeville who forwarded it to the Paris Natural History Museum where it was identified as a species new to science,closely related to Francolinus erckelii and formally described by Dorst and Jouanin (1952).In June and September 1953,Chédeville collected a further four specimens,again forwarding them to Paris together with habitat information on the Forêt du Day,and Dorst and Jouanin published a second paper on the species in 1954.Two more specimens were collected in 1970 by Hubert Gillet,these again being forwarded to Paris.Since 1970,the only research on the species has been carried out by Jacques Blot,as part of a wider study of the Forêt de Day (Blot 1985)and brief visits to the area by ourselves in 1984,1985,1987 and 1990. Laurent Laloup le dimanche 26 octobre 2008 Contribution au livre ouvert de Max Marcel Albospeyre | |
