Guinea fowl
family of birds
Guinea fowl or guineafowl () are birds of the family Numididae in the order Galliformes. They are endemic to Africa and rank among the oldest of the gallinaceous birds. Phylogenetically, they branched off from the core Galliformes after the Cracidae (chachalacas, guans, and curassows) and before the Odontophoridae (New World quail). An Eocene fossil lineage Telecrex has been associated with guinea fowl; Telecrex inhabited Mongolia, and may have given rise to the oldest of the true phasianids, such as blood pheasants and eared pheasants, which evolved into high-altitude, montane-adapted species with the rise of the Tibetan Plateau. While modern guinea fowl species are endemic to Africa, the helmeted guinea fowl has been introduced as a domesticated bird widely elsewhere.
Taxonomy and systematics
This is a list of guinea fowl species, presented in taxonomic order.
Phylogeny
Cladogram based on a study by De Chen and collaborators published in 2021.
Description
The insect- and seed-eating, ground-nesting birds of this family resemble partridges, but with featherless heads, though both members of the genus Guttera have a distinctive black crest, and the vulturine guinea fowl (Acryllium vulturinum) has a downy brown patch on the nape. Most species of guinea fowl have a dark grey or blackish plumage with dense white spots, but both members of the genus Agelastes lack the spots. While several species are relatively well known, the plumed guinea fowl and the two members of the genus Agelastes remain relatively poorly known.
The public source identifies “Guinea fowl” as family of birds. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Guinea, fowl and family.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q171953. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2021.
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This entry incorporates text from “Guinea fowl” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.