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  Profile

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  In flight

Game Birds

Greater Prairie-Chicken

Tympanuchus cupido

• epic
• 72 km/h
• Near Threatened

Booms a low foghorn across the grass each spring. The original prairie alert system.

Population

~360,000 mature individuals (2020 IUCN assessment, based on 2019 data)

Habitat

Undisturbed mixed-grass and tallgrass prairie with few trees and interspersed cropland; needs dense brush/grass cover for nesting and open elevated ground for lek (booming) displays; winters in brushy roost sites near croplands.

Fun fact

Males gather at communal "booming grounds" each spring where they inflate bright orange throat (esophageal) air sacs and stamp their feet in a synchronized courtship dance, but the one or two most dominant males on a lek typically win up to 90% of the matings.

Range

Central North American Great Plains — remnant populations in South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Illinois; historically far more widespread across tallgrass prairie and oak savanna before conversion to agriculture. (Two subspecies are separately assessed: the Heath Hen of the northeastern US, extinct since 1932, and Attwater's Prairie-Chicken of the Texas/Louisiana Gulf coastal plain, Critically Endangered.)

Diet

Leaves, seeds, buds, fruits, acorns, and cultivated grains (corn, sunflower, soy, sorghum), plus insects such as grasshoppers, crickets, and beetles; chicks feed mainly on insects.

Size

0.43 m

Wingspan

0.71 m