Helmeted Guineafowl

Numida meleagris

The ancestor of every farmyard guinea fowl. Sprints faster than it flies and shrieks louder than both.

Population: No precise global count published; BirdLife/IUCN (assessed 2018, current global category Least Concern) lists mature-individual count as unreported ("–") and characterizes the population as stable across an extremely large range (extent of occurrence ~24.5 million km²)
Habitat: Open, warm, fairly dry habitats with scattered shrubs and trees — savanna, grassland, open woodland, arable/cultivated land, and dry shrubland, often near freshwater rivers or waterholes; occurs from sea level up to about 3,000 m elevation; avoids dense forest, desert, and marsh
Fun fact: Helmeted Guineafowl are voracious tick-eaters — flocks are sometimes deliberately kept on farms and in yards specifically to suppress ticks (including species that carry Lyme disease).
Range: Native to sub-Saharan Africa, from Senegal/Guinea/Gambia east to Eritrea/Somalia and south to South Africa; introduced/feral (originally domesticated) populations established in parts of the West Indies (e.g. Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba), North America (USA), South America (Colombia, Brazil), Australia, New Zealand, and Europe
Diet: Omnivorous: primarily seeds, corms, tubers, grains, and agricultural weed/crop seeds outside the breeding season; shifts heavily toward invertebrates (beetles, other insects, and notably large numbers of ticks) during the breeding season, when animal matter can exceed 80% of the diet
Size: 0.58 m
Wingspan: 0.97 m
Lifespan: 12 years

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