thumb|Silver pheasant cock in captivity. Note the brown patches, typical of sub-adult males
The silver pheasant (Lophura nycthemera) is a species of pheasant found in forests, mainly in mountains, of mainland Southeast Asia and eastern and southern China. It is introduced on Victoria Island in Nahuel Huapi Lake, Neuquén, Argentina and on Vancouver Island, Canada. The male is black and white, while the female is mainly brown. Both sexes have a bare red face and red legs (the latter separating it from the greyish-legged kalij pheasant). It is common in aviculture, and overall also remains common in the wild, but some of its subspecies (notably L. n. whiteheadi from Hainan, L. n. engelbachi from southern Laos, and L. n. annamensis from southern Vietnam) are rare and threatened. The specific epithet nycthemerus combines the Ancient Greek νυξ/nux, νυκτος/nuktos meaning "night" with ἡμερα/hēmera meaning "day". The silver pheasant was formerly sometimes placed in the genus Gennaeus
The silver pheasant is closely related to the kalij pheasant and the two are known to hybridize. The placement of the taxa L. n. lineata and L. n. crawfurdi has been a matter of dispute, with some treating them as subspecies of the kalij pheasant and others as subspecies of the silver pheasant. They have greyish legs as in the kalij pheasant, but their plumage is closer to that of some subspecies of the silver pheasant. Additionally, as the silver pheasant, L. n. lineata and L. n. crawfurdi are found east of the Irrawaddy River, a major zoogeographic barrier, while all other subspecies of the kalij pheasant are found west of the river (L. n. oatesi, a subspecies of the kalij pheasant, has sometimes been reported as occurring east of that river,). Based on mtDNA, it was recently confirmed that L. n. lineata and L. n. crawfurdi should be regarded as subspecies of the kalij pheasant.
With these two as subspecies of the kalij pheasant, the silver pheasant has 15 subspecies. However, while some subspecies are relatively distinctive, several others (at least L. n. rufipes, L. n. occidentalis, L. n. ripponi, L. n. jonesi, L. n. beaulieui, L. n. nycthemera, and L. n. fokiensis) are likely part of a cline,
Subspecies
Fifteen subspecies are recognised: Females of all subspecies are notably smaller than their respective males, with a size range of in total length, including a tail of . The body mass of females can range from .