thumb|Illustration depicting the plumage of a male sand partridge.
The sand partridge (Ammoperdix heyi) is a gamebird in the pheasant family Phasianidae of the order Galliformes, gallinaceous birds.
This partridge has its main native range from Egypt and Israel east to south Arabia. It is closely related and similar to its counterpart in southeast Turkey and east to Pakistan, the see-see partridge, Ammoperdix griseogularis.
This 22–25 cm bird is a resident breeder in dry, open and often hilly country. It nests in a scantily lined ground scrape laying 5–14 eggs. The sand partridge takes a wide variety of seeds and some insect food.
Description
Source:
The sand partridge is a rotund bird, mainly sandy-brown with wavy white and brown flank stripes. It ranges from 22–25 cm in height, and 180-200 g in weight. Its wingspan ranges from 39–41 cm. They can live for up to 4 years.
When disturbed, sand partridge prefers to run rather than fly, but if necessary it flies a short distance on rounded wings. The song is a slurred kwa-kwa-kwa
Sexual dimorphism
Source: The Phasianidae family has a subfamily Phasianinae, which was considered monophyletic up until the 1990s until molecular phylogenies showed that its placement is indeed paraphyletic. The Phasianinae subfamily has two acknowledged clades: the erectile clade and the non-erectile clade (an erectile trait is a feathery or fleshy region on the head that some birds possess. It mainly evolved as a sexual signal. The sand partridge is part of the non-erectile clade, as they do not possess an erectile trait. These two clades are believed to have diverged during the early Oligocene, around 30 million years ago.
thumb|Illustration depicting the plumage of a female sand partridge.
Habitat and distribution
thumb|Female sand partridge.
Distribution
Sand partridges are endemic across the Middle East. Populations are distributed across Eastern Egypt, Eastern Sudan, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They prefer steep, boulder-strewn slopes with sandy-bottomed wadis and ridges up to 2000 m and valleys down to 400 m below sea level. Sand partridges are probably monogamous birds, but nests have been seen merely 30–70 m apart in Israel, indicating one male mating with multiple females (see polygyny). Releasing sand partridges to supplement hunted birds is part of their conservation work.