The Malayan crested fireback, or Vieillot's crested fireback (Lophura rufa), is a galliform bird of the family Phasianidae that inhabits the forests of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo.
| Kingdom | Animalia |
| Phylum | Chordata |
| Class | Aves |
| Order | Galliformes |
| Family | Phasianidae |
| Genus | Lophura |
| Species | Lophura rufa |
The Malayan crested fireback, or Vieillot's crested fireback (Lophura rufa), is a galliform bird of the family Phasianidae that inhabits the forests of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo.
It is a large and very showy pheasant: the male combines bluish-black plumage with an intense reddish lower back — hence its English name, "fireback" — and an erectile crest, while the female has much more discreet reddish-brown plumage.
It is a bird of humid tropical lowland forests, patchily distributed across the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo, where it belongs to the group of "fire" pheasants that are closely related to one another.
It feeds mainly by scratching through the leaf litter of the forest floor, where it finds small invertebrates such as termites and other insects, as well as fallen fruit and plant matter.
Like its close relatives in the fireback group, the female incubates a clutch of several eggs alone in a nest on the ground, with an incubation period of close to 24 days. It is a little-studied species in the wild, so much of the available data on its breeding comes from captive birds.
For a long time it was considered a subspecies of the Crested fireback (Lophura ignita) of Borneo, from which it is distinguished by the colour of the crest and the tail; both forms are now recognised as separate species.
