A pheasant-family bird of western Africa, with a separate population in western Morocco; it uses vegetated habitats.
About partridge-sized, it has a bold white eyebrow and rusty cap; males have two spurs on each leg.
Double-spurred Spurfowl eat both plant foods and arthropods. Their food includes wild seeds as well as cultivated grain and tubers, connecting the surrounding vegetation with agricultural feeding opportunities. A varied set of ground-level foods supports their diet.
A study published in 2020 examined 150 birds obtained through hunters at four locations in Nigeria’s Ekiti State: 69 males and 81 females. Crop and gizzard contents documented foods from both cultivated and wild plants.
Identified foods included cassava and other tubers, maize and rice, wild seeds, ants, termites and beetles. Plant material formed the larger component of the recovered food, alongside smaller arthropod prey. These remains document links between the birds, farmland and nearby vegetation.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
The 2016 IUCN assessment identifies over-hunting outside protected areas as a cause of decline. The Nigerian diet study sampled birds obtained through hunters. Habitat resources and patterns of capture are relevant conservation considerations for this farmland-using bird.