Numida meleagris

Geographic Range

Helmeted guinea fowl are distributed across most of Sub-Sahara Africa. They range as far west as Senegal and eastward to Eritrea at the north edge of their range, and southward to South Africa as the furthest southern range.

• Biogeographic Regions
• ethiopian ethiopian
  • native native

Habitat

Helmeted guinea fowl are found in exposed areas that have some trees for them to roost upon at night. These include grasslands, savannas, cultivated areas and scrub lands. These birds occur frequently around areas with water, primarily freshwater rivers or watering holes. These birds dislike dense forests, deserts and marshes.

• Habitat Regions
• terrestrial terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• savanna or grassland savanna or grassland
• scrub forest scrub forest

• Aquatic Biomes
• rivers and streams

• Other Habitat Features
• suburban suburban
• agricultural agricultural

Physical Description

Helmeted guinea fowl are ground birds that have a body shaped similar to a chicken and a grouse. They have a boney "helmet", known as a casque. The casque lies on top of the crown of the birds and both males and females have them. Male casques are usually larger than the casques of females. The bill is curved with red, fleshy skin further back on the lore. They have eyes that appear black but are dark brown. Their wattles are sky blue to dark blue with red at the tips. Females have smaller wattles compared to males. The sides of their heads at the ear-covert down to the middle of the neck are bare and are a sky blue to dark blue color. The lower section of the neck has down-like feathers that are brownish-grey in color. The body, wings and thighs are covered in black to dark grey feathers with uniformed speckles of white. Each feather can have up to a dozen or more speckles on them. The legs and feet are dark grey. Juveniles are similar to the adults with the exceptions of less developed wattles and casques. Their faces are paler than the adults, the speckles are less visible and their overall coloration is grayish brown. The chicks, known as keets, have longitudinal black stripes on their heads that are brown and are brownish grey in their body feathers. There are nine subspecies of helmeted guinea fowl in Africa. Differences vary from head colorations, casques, speckle arrangement, neck feathers and other little details that are minute.

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic endothermic
• bilateral symmetry bilateral symmetry

Reproduction

Helmeted Guinea Fowl mate seasonally after winter, changing from mixed flocks to paired birds. Males are known to be polygynous with females but will end up monogamous during the incubation period of the eggs. Males will chase and fight other male Helmeted Guinea Fowl to deter them from approaching their partner. Males and females will stay together for five weeks and are inseparable. They communicate with each other continuously, roost together at night and preen each other during this time.

• Mating System
• monogamous monogamous
• polygynous polygynous
• cooperative breeder cooperative breeder

Helmeted guinea fowl mate in the spring, changing from mixed flocks to paired birds. Males are known to be polygynous with females but will end up monogamous during the incubation period of the eggs. Males will chase and fight other males to deter them from approaching their partner. Males and females will stay together for five weeks and are inseparable. They communicate with each other continuously, roost together at night and preen each other during this time.

Helmeted guinea fowl females dig scrapes in dense vegetation areas with twigs and leaves within the nest. The female will lay around six to fifteen eggs within the depression and incubate them for up to thirty days. The male protects the female from other Helmeted guinea fowl and predators that might find the nest and feed the female. The eggs are a cream-brown coloration, shaped similar the pears, with a length of 53 mm and width of 40 mm. After thirty days, the eggs hatch and “keets”, term for chicks, are born. The keets forage with the parents once hatched as both parents defend them from dangers. Keets become fledged in four weeks. The keets stay with the parent group for at least fifty to seventy five days before becoming independent. Keets become sexually mature after a year.

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous iteroparous
• seasonal breeding seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual sexual
• oviparous oviparous

Female Helmeted guinea fowl brood the keets during the night while male roosts. Males will brood the keets during the day as the female forages during the first two weeks since hatching.

• Parental Investment
• male parental care male parental care
• female parental care female parental care
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female

Lifespan/Longevity

Helmeted guinea fowl live up to ten to twenty years in the wild. There is no literature on life expectancy on domestic birds.

Behavior

Helmeted guinea fowl flocks roost in trees for protection at night. During the day, they are always on the ground foraging for food in flocks of varying size. Some flocks can consist of a single male and female to large flocks with up to 100 birds. Flocks have territories that they wander around and do get into fights with other flocks but there is not enough literature on determining sizes of the territories. During winter, flocks are largest and during the mating season, mated pairs disperse to incubate their eggs. As they forage on the ground, they consistently vocalize and search for danger, using their eye site to detect movement and hearing to pinpoint danger. When faced with danger, they use their alarm calls to warn other birds and surrounding fauna. They typically run from danger but can fly as a last resort in a steep upward angle. Helmeted Guinea Fowl have a social hierarchy when in larger flocks as the birds continuously chase and fight each other to determine status. Juveniles show submissive behavior to older birds if they since danger. Helmeted guinea fowl use dust baths to clean their plumage daily.

• Key Behaviors
• arboreal arboreal
• terricolous
• diurnal diurnal
• crepuscular crepuscular
• motile motile
• social social

Home Range

Flocks have territories that they wonder around and do get into fights with other flocks but there is not enough literature on determining sizes of the territories.

Communication and Perception

Helmeted guinea fowl have harsh, dry calls that can carry vast distances. Males make a single "chek" sound, while females make two notes that are repetitive going "buck-wheat". Their calls increase in volume and tempo when they are excited, aggravated or if they since danger. The alarm call is a very loud, harsh, repeating rattling "kek-kek-kek-kek-krrrrrrrrr".

• Communication Channels
• acoustic acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual visual
• tactile tactile
• acoustic acoustic
• chemical chemical

Food Habits

Helmeted guinea fowl are omnivorous. In the wild, their plant diet include grass seeds, grain, seedlings, leaves, bulbs, roots, fruit and flower heads. Sources of protein in their diet consist of snails, beetles, insect larvae, ticks, various invertebrates, frogs, small lizards and small mice. They also ingest small pebbles for their gizzards. Their methods to obtain their food sources include digging and running with their legs, plucking, flicking and jabbing with their beak and jumping to reach out to food.

In domestic stock, they are fed primarily commercial chicken diets, cereal grains, garden and kitchen wastes, maize, sorghum and millet. Compared to chickens, helmeted guinea fowl require higher protein intake and this has been problematic due to debate on their requirements in a domestic setting. This has led to problems in their growth and egg production in many areas of the world.

• Primary Diet
• carnivore carnivore
  • eats terrestrial vertebrates
  • insectivore insectivore
  • eats non-insect arthropods
  • molluscivore molluscivore
  • vermivore
• herbivore herbivore
  • folivore folivore
  • frugivore frugivore
  • granivore granivore
• omnivore omnivore

• Animal Foods
• mammals
• amphibians
• reptiles
• insects
• terrestrial non-insect arthropods
• mollusks
• terrestrial worms

• Plant Foods
• leaves
• seeds, grains, and nuts
• fruit
• flowers

Predation

Helmeted guinea fowl are preyed upon by a variety of animals along with their eggs. Known predators include leopards ( Panthera pardus ), servals ( Leptailurus serval ), wildcats ( Felis sivestris ), dogs ( Canis lupus. familiaris ), wolves ( Canis lupus ), large reptiles that include crocodiles ( Crocodylinae ) and snakes ( Serpentes ) and Martial Eagles ( Polemaetus bellicosus ).

Helmeted guinea fowl are gamebirds in Africa and are hunted for their meat and for sport. They are considered a smart bird and give hunters a challenge when hunting them. Domestic Helmeted guinea fowl are raised to be processed into poultry and as an egg laying fowl.

• Anti-predator Adaptations
• aposematic aposematic

Ecosystem Roles

Helmeted Guinea Fowl house many parasites including Heterakis gallinarum , Ascaridia galli , Capillaria caudinflata , Raillietinatetragona , Raillietina echinobothrida , Eimeria species, Leucocytozoan species, Plasmodium species, Aegyptianella pullorum , Argas persicus , and a genus of Lice, Damalinia .

• Ecosystem Impact
• disperses seeds

Economic Importance for Humans: Positive

Helmeted guinea fowl have been hunted for thousands of years in Africa and are hunted today as a popular game bird. These birds have been domesticated for their meat, eggs and feathers and are a growing in popularity in various countries for these resources and as an exotic farm animal. Many Zoos house these unique birds for education and aviaries house them for their exotic look. They are also a bird many tourist and Birders want to see on Safari in Africa. These birds are used as tick and insect control in agricultural fields and have been known to consume infected Deer ticks with Lyme disease.

• Positive Impacts
• pet trade pet trade
• food food
• body parts are source of valuable material
• ecotourism ecotourism
• research and education
• produces fertilizer
• controls pest population

Economic Importance for Humans: Negative

Helmeted guinea fowl are known to damage crops, especially emerging seedlings. They are also a noisy bird and can cause headaches and migraines to people around them. They are a difficult bird to raise, since they are newer to a world market. Many farmers have lost money due to not understanding how to raise these birds properly.

• Negative Impacts
• crop pest

Conservation Status

Helmeted Guinea Fowl are listed as least concerned according to the IUCN Red List.

Additional Links

Encyclopedia of Life

Contributors

Matthew Portner (author), Northern Michigan University, Alec Lindsay (editor), Northern Michigan University, Tanya Dewey (editor), University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

References

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