 the plains-wanderer (pedionomus torquatus) or plains wanderer, is a bird, the only representative of its family. it is endemic to australia. the majority of the remaining population are found in the riverina region of new south wales. ==description== the plains-wanderer is a quail-like ground bird, measuring 15&ndash;19&nbsp;cm. the adult male is light brown above, with fawn-white underparts with black crescents. the adult female has a distinctive white-spotted black collar. they are poor flyers, preferring to run when startled. females lay four eggs, which the male then incubates. ==taxonomy== it was formerly believed to be related to the buttonquails and thus placed in the gamebird order galliformes or with the cranes and rails in gruiformes. dna-dna hybridization and rag-1 sequence data places it as a wader related to the jacanas (sibley & ahlquist 1990, paton et al. 2003, thomas et al. 2004, van tuinen et al. 2004). it thus represents a remarkable case of morphological convergence, or perhaps it is simply extremely plesiomorphic in morphology (the buttonquails, meanwhile, having turned out to be a very basal offshoot of the wader radiation). in the latter case, this would mean that the jacanas, painted snipe and seedsnipes &ndash; all ecologically very different birds &ndash; all evolved from birds very similar to the living plains-wanderer. ==status and conservation== population decline has been caused by the conversion of native grasslands to cultivation. sites identified by birdlife international as being important for plains-wanderer conservation are boolcoomatta, bindarrah and kalkaroo stations in north-eastern south australia, diamantina and astrebla grasslands in western queensland, [[patho plains important bird area|patho plain
Birds_of_South_Australia Endangered_fauna_of_Australia Higher-level_bird_taxa_restricted_to_Australia IUCN_Red_List_endangered_species Monotypic_bird_families Thinocori