Anthropoides virgo
Silhouette: Kai Caspar · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The demoiselle crane (Grus virgo) is a species of crane found in central Eurosiberia, ranging from the Black Sea to Mongolia and Northeast China. There is also a small breeding population in Turkey. These cranes are migratory birds. Birds from western Eurasia will spend the winter in Africa while the birds from Asia, Mongolia and China will spend the winter in the Indian subcontinent. The bird is symbolically significant in the culture of India, where it is known as koonj or kurjaa.
The demoiselle crane was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the herons and cranes in the genus Ardea and coined the binomial name Ardea virgo. He specified the type locality as the orient but this has been restricted to India. Linnaeus cited the accounts by earlier authors. The English naturalist Eleazar Albin had described and illustrated the "Numidian crane" in 1738. Albin explained that: "This Bird is called Demoiselles by reason of certain ways of acting that it has, wherein it seems to imitate the Gestures of a Woman who affects a Grace in her Walking, Obeisances, and Dancing". Linnaeus also... Wikipedia →
Recording0:14
Russia · 2021
© Марина Горбунова-Ëлкина · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
Recording0:16
Russia · 2024
© Anastasiia Merkulova · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
Recording0:22
Russia · 2025
© olegek777 · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park | 🇲🇳 Mongolia | |
| 2 | Keoladeo National Park | 🇮🇳 India |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jodhpur | 🇮🇳 India |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Demoiselle Crane sighting in Jodhpur on a given day, based on 11 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 86th most-seen of the 127 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Demoiselle Crane in Jodhpur on a given day, against under 5% in March to January, the lowest months. That is one of Jodhpur's driest months, with about 5 mm of rain against 110 mm in August.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Demoiselle Crane sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Jodhpur, in our data
Jodhpur is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Demoiselle Crane sightings: under 5% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same order: Gruiformes
The closest relatives of the Demoiselle Crane that you can see in Jodhpur (order Gruiformes, Cranes, Rails, and Allies) are Common Moorhen (about 50%), Eurasian Coot (about 40%) and White-breasted Waterhen (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Demoiselle Crane is recorded against all the birds logged in Jodhpur (11 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
