Greater Prairie Chicken

Open encyclopedia reference

The greater prairie-chicken or pinnated grouse (Tympanuchus cupido), sometimes called a boomer, is a large bird in the grouse tribe. This North American species was once abundant but has become extremely rare or extirpated over much of its range due to habitat loss, natural disasters, and overhunting. Conservation measures are underway to ensure the sustainability of existing small populations. One of the most famous aspects of these creatures is the mating ritual called booming.

Carl Linnaeus based his account on the "Le Cocq de bois d'Amerique" that had been described and illustrated by the English naturalist Mark Catesby in his book The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. Catesby had seen greater prairie-chickens in 1743 at the home of the Earl of Wilmington in the then village of Chiswick, 7 mi (11 km) west of London. The Earl believed that that his birds had come from North America but did not know from where. Linnaeus specified the type locality as Virginia but this has been changed to Pennsylvania by the American Ornithologists' Union.

Wikipedia contributors, Greater prairie-chicken; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T10:17:35.347964+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Tympanuchus cupido (Linnaeus, 1758)

Name authority

(Linnaeus, 1758)

Common name

Greater Prairie Chicken

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Galliformes

Family

Phasianidae

Genus

Tympanuchus

Extinction status

Recorded extant

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. megaclassTetrapoda
8. classAves
9. orderGalliformes
10. familyPhasianidae
11. genusTympanuchus Gloger, 1841
12. speciesTympanuchus cupido (Linnaeus, 1758)

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Tympanuchus. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 123 records assigned to Phasianidae.

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=175834 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:7DB5L. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.