The Manipur Bush-Quail is a small, dark gray quail associated with damp grassland and scrub. Males and females differ in face color, and older accounts describe ground foraging.
Its dark gray body has black scaling, while the yellowish-brown belly is spotted with black. Males have a reddish face and females a gray face.
Manipur Bush-Quail are associated with dense, tall wet grasslands of northeastern India. They have dark grey plumage and a buff belly; males also have a chestnut forehead and throat. Dense grasses conceal these small quails.
The British Museum type catalogue records an adult male collected by A. O. Hume at Phalel in the southeastern Manipur Plain on 9 April 1881. A registration number, date and locality identify it as one of the syntypes associated with the species description.
The 2024 assessment calls for urgent surveys to establish where populations survive, recognising that survey coverage remains inadequate. Museum locality records document historical occurrence. With tall grasslands disappearing, new evidence is needed to connect those historical records to the bird’s present distribution.
IUCN Red List · Critically Endangered · Global
The2024 IUCN assessment lists Critically Endangered. Any surviving populations are thought to be tiny and fragmented; urgent surveys and protection of occupied grassland are priorities.