Chinese Monal

Lophophorus lhuysii Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, A, 1866

76–80 cmLength3 kgWeight

The male is blue-purple with a metallic gloss and a coppery-rufous mantle, revealing a snow-white back when it spreads its wings.

Busiest months: May · Most records: China

Looks like Sclater's Monal

Vulnerable

How to identify

Field marks

Crown and face metallic green, with a blue-purple crest
Coppery-rufous mantle across the side of neck, nape and scapulars
Back and uppertail-coverts snow-white, often hidden by the wings
Bill long and decurved

Male, female and young

Female mainly brown and dull, with a ring of blue bare skin around the eye; back and uppertail-coverts also snow-white.

Similar species

Sclater's Monal

The male Chinese Monal has a blue-purple crest, an important distinction, but when at rest, the crest often lies flat against the nape and is hard to see.

Where and when it's recorded

Busiest months: May · Most records: China

Chinese Monal has been recorded at 14 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 1 country or region.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

To protect this bird from disturbance, we don't list exact sites.

Countries and regions with the most records

China

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The Chinese monal or Chinese impeyan (Lophophorus lhuysii) is a species in the pheasant family Phasianidae native to west-central China, where it is restricted to the mountains of western Sichuan and southern Gansu.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia