Elliot's Pheasant is a pheasant endemic to southeastern China. The male has a long tail marked with silvery bars.
The male has a long chestnut tail with silvery bars, white sides to the neck, and a black throat. The smaller female has a reddish-brown crown and mottled upperparts.
Elliot’s Pheasants use forests in China. At Gutianshan in Zhejiang, records came from mixed evergreen and deciduous broadleaved forest, conifer-containing forest and other wooded habitats. Their occurrence differed among forest settings and seasons.
Camera monitoring from May 2014 to April 2016 recorded pheasants in 44 one-kilometre-square grid blocks, with 211 independent detections. Activity and the area of occurrence were relatively smaller in winter and spring and increased in summer and autumn.
The elevation of detections increased with monthly mean temperature, suggesting a tendency to use higher areas in warmer months. Proximity to water also helped explain distribution. Seasonal habitat use involved both mountain elevation and local water availability.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
The Gutianshan study links distribution with elevation, season and water availability. Conserving habitat involves understanding the forests and water-associated areas used across seasons, and mapping actual occurrence within protected landscapes.