User:Naoboi17

NONGIN
The Nongin or Mrs. Hume's Bar Pheasant (Syrmaticus humiae) is the state bird of Manipur. In Local Language/dialect it is called - Nongin, Loining-khoi, Noiningkhoi (Manipuri), Tharikthra (Tangkhul), and Lickashila (Razai). This is a resident bird of the Eastern Himalayan region and belongs to the order of Galliformes and family of Phasinadie. Its habitat ranges from grassland of deforested areas to steep rocky slopes with forest and scrubs. Male has chestnut and blue-black color with white banding along scapulars and across wings, and has strongly barred tail. The female has narrow whitish wing bars, and white tips to tail feathers. Both the sexes have long graduated tail and red facial skin. A. O. Hume, a British civil officer identified this bird scientifically during his stay in Manipur in 1883 and named the bird after the name of his wife. Thereafter, the bird is known as Mrs. Hume's Bar Pheasant. The basic data of a freshly killed Nongin Male bird :

(1) Body length (Head to Tail) - 90 cm, (2) Tail Length - 58 cm, (3) Body length (Head to vent) - 32 cm, (4) Total expanded Wing Length - 30 cm, (5) Carpel Joint to Primary end - 22 cm, (6) Leg length - 22.5 cm, (7) Tarsus-13 cm, (8) Upper digit - 2 cm (9) Lower mandible (beak) - 3 cm, (10) Upper Mandible (beak) - 3.5 cm, (11) Neck - 8 cm, (12) Body girth - 30 cm (13) Wing primaries - 10 cm (14) Wing Secondaries - 15 cm (15) Primary covert - 8 cm and (16) Alula - 3cm. (2) The total body weight of the male nongin bird was 980 gm.

There are two sub-species of Nongins viz (Sh humie) and (Sh burminicus). Nongin (S. humie humie) is believed to be found in the Forest of Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur of India. (Sh, burmanicus) is believed to be found in Eastern Mynmar, South China, and Thailand etc. The Bird Life International (UK) is preparing a database of the important bird areas (IBA's) of the globe in view of the serious trend of extinction of bird species and to take up protection and conservational measures. Under this initiative, 9 (nine) important bird areas of Manipur has been identified among the 466 important bird areas of Indian sub-continent. The identified IBA's of Manipur are respectively, Ango Hill	Ukhrul District Shiroy Hill	-do- Yangoupokpi-Lokchao	-do- Loktak-keibul Lamjao Naional Park	Bishnupur District Bunning Wild Life Sanctuary	Tamenglong District Zeliad Wild life Sanctuary	-do- Kailam Wild Life Sanctuary	Churachandpur District. Dzuku Valley	Senapati District Jiri-Maku	Tamenglong and Imphal East

Nongin feeds after preliminary analysis of the stomach of the death bird, found to include variety of seed and plant part like leaf and buds in different proportion in different seasons. During winter they also consume larger proportion of fagaceae and ferns and different kind of insects etc. To grind the strong seed such as Qurecus the Nongin also ate small hard stone particle as well.

IUCN Conservation Status:- IUCN had classified this Bird Species as Near Threatened as on 2008, Vulnerable-2004, Vulnerable-2000, Vulnerable-1994 and Threatened-1988. (The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species).