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| Common Pheasant | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||
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| Binomial nomenclature | ||||||||||||
There genus Phasianus in the Pheasant family consists of (perhaps) a single species (P. colchicus) with thirty subspecies recognised, twenty-nine on the Asian mainland and one on the island of Taiwan off the southern coast of China. Some subspecies have been introduced to North America and have hybridized and have now become well established over there.
The three forms on the Japanese islands can be concidered variants of a distinct and seperate species (The Green Pheasant, P. versicolor) though some authorities consider the Japanese birds to be part of the same species complex which would make thirty three subspecies in total.