Numida meleagris
Silhouette: Matías Muñoz · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5%
The helmeted guinea fowl (Numida meleagris) is the best known of the guinea fowl bird family, Numididae, and the only member of the genus Numida. It is native to Africa, mainly south of the Sahara, and has been widely introduced, as a domesticated species, into the West Indies, North America, Colombia, Brazil, Australia and Europe.
The helmeted guinea fowl was formally described by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Phasianus meleagris. In 1764, Linnaeus moved the helmeted guinea fowl to the new genus Numida. The genus name Numida is Latin for "North African".
In the early days of the European colonisation of North America, the native wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) was confused with this species. The word meleagris, Greek for guinea fowl, is also shared in the scientific names of the two species, though for the guinea fowl it is the species name, whereas for the turkey, it is the name of the genus and, in inflected form, the former family, Meleagridididae.
The nine recognised subspecies are: The helmeted guinea fowl is a large, 53 to 58 cm (21 to 23 in) bird... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cape Town | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 2 | Harare | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | |
| 3 | Pretoria | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 4 | Johannesburg | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 5 | Lilongwe | 🇲🇼 Malawi | |
| 6 | Denpasar | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | |
| 7 | Abuja | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | |
| 8 | Kampala | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 9 | Mombasa | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 10 | San Diego | 🇺🇸 United States |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Helmeted Guineafowl sighting in Sydney on a given day, based on 36 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 179th most-seen of the 243 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, if each day is a fresh chance.
Any time of year
In every month with enough records, under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Helmeted Guineafowl in Sydney on a given day, so our monthly data shows no clear season.
Between 3 and 6 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Helmeted Guineafowl sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
21st of 26
Of the 26 cities where we can rate Helmeted Guineafowl sightings, Sydney ranks 21st at under 5%. The best odds are in Cape Town (South Africa, about 30%), Harare (Zimbabwe, about 30%) and Pretoria (South Africa, about 20%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Helmeted Guineafowl is recorded against all the birds logged in Sydney (36 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.
