Snow mountain quail
Synoicus monorthonyx (van Oort, 1910)
Status not recordedbirds
The snow mountain quail (Synoicus monorthonyx) is a species in the family Phasianidae, order Galliformes. Recorded adults weigh about 401 g. Source checklists list it for 1 country: Australia.
Quick facts about the snow mountain quail
- Weight
- 401 gsrc for Weight
- Length
- Not recorded
- Lifespan
- Not recorded
- Diet
- Omnivoresrc for Diet
- Main food
- Not recorded
- Habitat
- shrublandsrc for Habitat
- Young per litter or clutch
- Not recorded
- Lifestyle
- Terrestrialsrc for Lifestyle
- Migration
- Sedentarysrc for Migration
- Conservation status
- Not recorded
- Countries on record
- 1 countrysrc for Countries on record
Where does the snow mountain quail live?
Countries where Catalogue of Life checklists list the species. Many checklists carry no country data, so the list is often incomplete. It is not a range map.
The snow mountain quail is listed for 1 country.
- Listed
- Not listed
The same countries as a list
Why a country list is not a range map
Listed by: ITIS (scope: global), through the Catalogue of Life.
What is the snow mountain quail?
The Snow Mountain quail (Synoicus monorthonyx), is a roughly 28-cm-long (11 in), dark brown quail of alpine grasslands. It was formerly considered the only member of the genus Anurophasis, but phylogenetic analysis places it as the sister species to the brown quail (S. ypsilophorus) in the genus Synoicus. It has heavily marked brown plumage, a pale yellow bill, yellow legs and a brown iris. The underparts of the female are whitish and more distinctly barred black than in the male.
The Snow Mountain quail is confined to Western New Guinea's highest elevations, the Snow and Star Mountains. This little-known bird is protected only by the remoteness of its habitat, a mostly inaccessible area at altitudes of 3,200–4,200 m (10,500–13,800 ft).
The female usually lays up to three, pale brown, dark-spotted eggs in a hollow nest under the edge of a grass tussock. The diet consists mainly of seeds, flowers, leaves, and other vegetable matter.
Due to its large range which is largely inaccessible to human encroachment, the Snow Mountain quail is evaluated as least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
From the Wikipedia article “Snow Mountain quail” (en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Snow_Mountain_quail&oldid=1369463213), by Wikipedia contributors, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). This block is kept separate from our own text.
Is the snow mountain quail endangered?
No conservation assessment is recorded for this species in our sources. That is not the same as being safe: it has not been matched to an assessment.
How is the snow mountain quail classified?
- kingdomAnimalia
- phylumChordata
- classAves
- orderGalliformes
- familyPhasianidae
- genusSynoicus
- SpeciesSynoicus monorthonyx (van Oort, 1910)
Synonyms Anurophasis monorthonyx
Other names and names in other languages (40)
- SneeubergekwartelAfrikaans
- سمان جبل الثلجArabic
- guatlla de muntanyaCatalan
- Guatlla muntanyencaCatalan
- křepelka novoguinejskáCzech
- Sofliar eiraWelsh
- Snow Mountain-vagtelDanish
- SchneegebirgswachtelGerman
- monta koturnoEsperanto
- Sudirmana koturnoEsperanto
- Codorniz papúaSpanish
- codorniz de PapúaSpanish
- mägivuttEstonian
- بلدرچین برفیPersian
- papuanviiriäinenFinnish
- Caille de montagneFrench
- Snježnoplaninska fazankaSerbian (Latin)
- שליו הר השלגHebrew
- novogvinejska prepelicaCroatian
- Puyuh SaljuIndonesian
- Puyuh jayawijayaIndonesian
- Quaglia degli SnowItalian
- ユキヤマウズラJapanese
- Naujosios Gvinėjos putpelėLithuanian
- Nieuwguinese bergpatrijsDutch
- Nieuw-Guinese BergpatrijsDutch
- kjempevaktelNorwegian
- przepiórka nowogwinejskaPolish
- codorniz-papuaPortuguese
- codorniz-da-papuaPortuguese
- Снежный перепелRussian
- Новогвинейский горный перепелRussian
- prepelica horskáSlovak
- Papuanska prepelicaSerbian
- papuavaktelSwedish
- papuaberghönaSwedish
- Büyük BıldırcınTurkish
- перепілка новогвінейськаUkrainian
- 雪山鶉Chinese
- 雪山鹑Chinese
Relatives of the snow mountain quail
Other species in the same genus Synoicus.
King quail
Synoicus chinensis
Brown quail
Synoicus ypsilophorus
Blue quail
Synoicus adansonii
CompareSnow mountain quail vs King quailSnow mountain quail vs Brown quailSnow mountain quail vs Blue quail
Common questions
Answered only where our data holds the answer.
How big is the snow mountain quail?
An adult snow mountain quail weighs 401 g, according to values recorded on Wikidata.
Where does the snow mountain quail live?
Catalogue of Life checklists list the snow mountain quail for 1 country: Australia. Checklist coverage is uneven, so the true range may be wider.
What kind of animal is the snow mountain quail?
The snow mountain quail (Synoicus monorthonyx) belongs to the family Phasianidae in the order Galliformes.
Sources and how to cite this page
Data as of 2026-11-11. How this page is put together.
- An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles · CC0 1.0 · E096-269
Myhrvold, N.P., Baldridge, E., Chan, B., Sivam, D., Freeman, D.L. & Ernest, S.K.M. (2015) An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96: 3109. https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0846R.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3563457.v1 - AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds · CC BY 4.0 · v7
Tobias, J.A. et al. (2022) AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds. Ecology Letters 25: 581–597. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13898. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16586228.v7 - Catalogue of Life eXtended Release · CC BY 4.0 · 2026-10-16 XR
Catalogue of Life (2026). Catalogue of Life eXtended Release, version 2026-10-16 XR. Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgzlf - Wikimedia Commons · per file (CC0 / public domain / CC BY green, CC BY-SA amber, anything else not displayed) · 2026-11-11
Wikimedia Commons contributors. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org (each file credited to its author under its own licence). - Wikidata · CC0 1.0 · 2026-11-11
Wikidata contributors. Wikidata. https://www.wikidata.org (data retrieved via the Wikidata Query Service). - Wikipedia (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 2026-11-11
Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org (text under CC BY-SA 4.0; each block names its article and revision).
Embed a card for this animal on your own site
Copy this code. The card shows the photo with its credit, key facts and a link back to this page.
CreatureData. (2026). Snow mountain quail (Synoicus monorthonyx). Retrieved from https://creaturedata.com/animals/snow-mountain-quail
“Snow mountain quail (Synoicus monorthonyx).” CreatureData, 2026, https://creaturedata.com/animals/snow-mountain-quail.
@misc{snow_mountain_quail_2026,
title = {Snow mountain quail (Synoicus monorthonyx)},
author = {{CreatureData}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/snow-mountain-quail},
note = {Data as of 2026-11-11}
}