Edward's Pheasant is a pheasant of the forests of central Vietnam. Males have a white crest on the head.
The male has a long, narrow white crest.
Edwards’s Pheasants originate from central Vietnam and have long been bred abroad. Birds taken to France, Japan and Britain in the early twentieth century produced descendants that were subsequently exchanged between breeders and countries.
A 1999 paper analysed feather and blood samples from 27 captive birds representing ten of 21 recorded maternal bloodlines. A section of maternally inherited DNA was identical except in one bird suspected of hybrid ancestry.
Historical museum specimens and samples obtained in Vietnam at the time retained slightly different sequences. Increasing captive numbers had not preserved every maternal variant found in those samples. The researchers linked this pattern to few founding females and subsequent genetic drift.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
The genetic study shows why conservation breeding requires information on ancestry and hybridization as well as appearance and numbers. The researchers recommended examining nuclear DNA, inherited from both parents, to assess diversity beyond maternal lineages.