This species of Podoces (Ground-Jay) was discovered by Lt. Col. G. Henderson (1837-1929) during the first Yarkand Expedition in 1870 to the remote desert areas of central Asia. Henderson wrote, 'They always kept in pairs, and moved from one sandhill to another, seemingly searching for insects in the sand... There was hardly a trace of vegetation in the localities in which they occured and they were always seen on bare hillocks of drift-sand'.
The figure in the foreground is depicted lifesize from the type specimen in the British Museum.
G. Henderson and A.O. Hume, Lahore to Yarkand, 1873, p.244
DISTRIBUTION: Central Asia in eastern Kazakhstan, Mongolia and northwestern China