The chestnut-bellied partridge was
formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist
Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of
Carl Linnaeus's
Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the grouse like birds in the
genus Tetrao and coined the
binomial name Tetrao javanicus. Gmelin based his description on the "Javan partridge" that had been described and illustrated in 1776 by the English naturalist
Peter Brown. The chestnut-bellied partridge is now one of around twenty species placed in the genus
Arborophila that was introduced in 1837 by the English naturalist
Brian Houghton Hodgson. The genus name combines the
Latin arbor,
arboris meaning "tree" with the
Ancient Greek philos meaning "-loving". Two
subspecies of chestnut-bellied partridge are recognized: •
A. j. javanica (Gmelin J.F., 1789) – montane
Java •
A. j. lawuana (Bartels M., 1938) – montane east-central
Java == References ==