White-tailed ptarmigan White-tailed ptarmigan The white-tailed ptarmigan ("Lagopus leucura"), also known as the snow quail, is the smallest bird in the grouse family. It is a permanent resident of high altitudes on or above the tree line and is native to Alaska and the mountainous parts of Canada and the western United States. It has also been introduced into the Sierra Nevada in California, the Wallowa Mountains in Oregon and the Uinta Mountains in Utah. Its plumage is cryptic and varies at different times of the year. In the summer it is speckled in gray, brown and white whereas in winter it
Snow camouflage snow camouflage patterns. Charles Darwin mentioned the white winter coloration of the ptarmigan in his 1859 "Origin of Species": The white protective coloration of arctic animals was noted by an early student of camouflage, the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, in his 1889 book "Darwinism"; he listed the polar bear, the American polar hare, the snowy owl and the gyr falcon as remaining white all year, while the arctic fox, arctic hare, ermine and ptarmigan change their colour, and observed "the obvious explanation", that it was for concealment, at a time when Darwinism was at a low ebb. Later zoologists such