for
Charles Darwin's 1874 book,
Descent of Man Carl Linnaeus gave the great argus its
specific name (from which its common name and genus name are derived) because of the intricate eye-like
patterns on its wings, in reference to
Argus, a hundred-eyed giant in
Greek mythology. There are two subspecies recognized: Nominate
argus of the Malay peninsula and Sumatra, and
A. a. grayi of
Borneo. William Beebe considered the two races to be distinct species, but they have since been lumped. The genus
Argusianus was introduced in 1849 by the English zoologist
George Gray with the great argus as the
type species.{{ cite journal | last=Gregory | first=Steven M.S. | date=2011 | title=The authorship of the generic name
Argusianus | journal=Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club | volume=131
Double-banded argus The double-banded argus (
Argusianus bipunctatus), known only from a portion of a single primary
flight feather, was long considered a potential second species. It was described in 1871 from this feather piece, found in a
millinery shipment imported to
London. Its origin was hypothesized to be from
Java,
Indonesia or
Tioman Island of
Malaysia, because of the great argus's absence from these locations. Parkes (1992) rejected the double-banded argus's validity and argued that it almost certainly represents a
mutant form of the great argus. The
IUCN, following the
precautionary principle, listed this
taxon as
extinct until 2012. It was removed from the IUCN Red list because the
IOC had removed this species from its list of valid bird taxa in 2011. While the feather is indeed quite distinct, it represents a fairly simple divergence: The entirely asymmetrically-patterned vanes are instead near-symmetrical, and both bear the darker brown shaftward area with dense whitish speckles. The shaft is thinner than usual and the feather would probably not have been useful for flight. Nothing similar has come to notice ever since, and as the feather piece is not a composite of two feather halves glued together but an apparently natural specimen, a hoax or fake can be ruled out. Despite all conjecture that has been built around the feather piece, all that can be said is that at some time around 1870, an argus pheasant which bore at least one such feather was shot in an unknown location. Even if this individual was one of the last remnants of a now-extinct population, it is unlikely that only a single feather would have been taken from an unusual specimen of a well-known, often-hunted, and conspicuous bird, and that this single feather would have then been bundled into a shipment of normal great argus feathers. The feather is now housed in the
Natural History Museum in London. ==Names==