Sandgrouse

Sandgrouse
Double-banded sandgrouse
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Clade:	Columbimorphae
Order:	Pterocliformes Huxley, 1868
Family:	Pteroclidae Bonaparte, 1831
Genera
†Gerandia Lambrecht, 1933 †Archaeoganga Mourer-Chauviré, 1992 †Leptoganga Mourer-Chauviré, 1993 Pterocles Temminck, 1815 Nyctiperdix Roberts, 1922 Calopterocles Roberts, 1922 non Gmelin Syrrhaptes Illiger, 1811
Synonyms
Order level Pteroclidiformes Pterocleiformes Family level Pteroclididae Pterocleidae

Sandgrouse is the common name for Pteroclidae /tɛˈrɒklɪdiː/, a family of sixteen species of bird, members of the order Pterocliformes /ˌtɛrəklɪfɔːrmiːz/. They are traditionally placed in two genera. The two central Asian species are classified as Syrrhaptes and the other fourteen species, from Africa and Asia, are placed in the genus Pterocles. They are ground-dwelling birds restricted to treeless, open country, such as plains, savannahs, and semi-deserts. They are distributed across northern, southern, and eastern Africa, Madagascar, the Middle East, and India through central Asia. The ranges of the black-bellied sandgrouse and the pin-tailed sandgrouse even extend into the Iberian Peninsula and France, and Pallas's sandgrouse occasionally breaks out in large numbers from its normal range in Asia.