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Black-necked crane

species of bird

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ261445 ↗
Source-derived summary

The black-necked crane (Grus nigricollis) is a medium-sized crane in Asia that breeds on the Tibetan Plateau and remote parts of India and Bhutan. It is 139 cm (55 in) long with a 235 cm (7.71 ft) wingspan, and it weighs 5.5 kg (12 lb). It is whitish-gray, with a black head, red crown patch, black upper neck and legs, and white patch to the rear of the eye. It has black primaries and secondaries. Both sexes are similar. Some populations are known to make seasonal movements. It is revered in Buddhist traditions and culturally protected across much of its range. A festival in Bhutan celebrates the bird while the Indian union territory of Ladakh has designated it as the state bird.

Distribution and habitat

The black-necked crane summers mainly in the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau. The breeding areas are alpine meadows, lakeside and riverine marshes and river valleys.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Black-necked crane” is species of bird. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Black-necked, crane and species, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical orientation to terminology and classification, particularly when read beside dated observations, specimens or technical literature. The current 148-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Black-necked, crane and species is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “species of bird” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q261445. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Scientific names, classifications and consensus can change while older terminology persists in catalogues and historical literature. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Black-necked crane primary sources, Black-necked crane archive and Black-necked research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Black-necked crane” 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.