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Joël Sartore

King cobras are the longest of all venomous snakes. As they face a variety of threats stemming from human activities, these snakes are vulnerable to extinction.

Two domestic chicken breeds, silkies and Buff Orpingtons (with the orange feathers), stare down the camera in Lincoln, Nebraska. With more than 33 billion birds around the globe, chickens are one species that’s certainly not threatened—they now outnumber humans at least 4 to 1.

This Lady Amherst’s pheasant lives at Pheasant Heaven, a private sanctuary in North Carolina dedicated to caring for and breeding many of the world’s rarest pheasants. These brilliant birds live primarily in Myanmar (Burma) and southeastern China. Named for British botanist and naturalist Sarah Amherst, the birds were introduced to the wilds of Britain but are now extinct there.

The lesser Bornean crested fireback (seen at the Houston Zoo) lives in Borneo’s lowland forests, where they face extensive habitat destruction. Though classified as vulnerable to extinction, the radiant pheasants have shown some encouraging adaptability by surviving in logged forests and, in some places, living near people. To stake a claim to territory or attract mates, the male birds engage in dramatic wing-whirring displays accompanied by a squirrel-like call.

The tufted helmeted guineafowl is a popular attraction at the Tsimbazaza Zoo in Madagascar. The birds make a racket, and because they’re easily provoked, the farmyard flocks frequently double as guard birds.

Helmeted guineafowl, which include nine subspecies, such as Reichenow’s helmeted guineafowl (seen above at the Sylvan Heights Bird Park) are common sights across sub-Saharan Africa and the island nation of Madagascar. Named for the bony casque atop their heads, helmeted guineafowl use their long legs to walk and run miles each day in search of food and water. People domesticated helmeted guineafowl some 2,000 years ago, and the birds remain in high demand for their meat and eggs.

The male Germain’s peacock pheasant (pictured at the San Antonio Zoo in Texas) is decorated with ocelli, the eyespots more famously found on peacocks. The gaudy plumage has proven so successful at attracting mates that is has evolved several times in various Galliformes species. Like most game birds, this species prefers to strut its stuff on the ground. “If you’ve ever flushed a pheasant or a quail, it just explodes up, and then it only goes about a hundred yards. All these birds are made for walking,” says Kevin McGowan, a biologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in New York. This species is considered near-threatened because of logging operations and hunting with both gun and snare.

Genetic studies have confirmed that the world’s domestic chickens are chiefly descended from a subspecies of red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus) that was domesticated in northern Southeast Asia or southern China about 9,500 years ago. Above, a male red jungle fowl poses as the Assam State Zoo cum Botanical Garden in India. (Read how keeping chickens has become more popular during the pandemic.) These birds, which are not threatened by extinction, still range from India to Indonesia, and some of their feral chicken relatives have even returned to the wild in various corners of the world—including Hawaii.

The Congo peacock (photographed at the Houston Zoo) is rarely seen in the wild; perhaps only 10,000 birds still inhabit the rainforests of the Congo River Basin. Though the Democratic Republic of the Congo has protected its national bird since 1938, poaching and habitat loss continue to drive steep population declines. The IUCN lists the species as vulnerable to extinction. Captive-breeding programs have so far had limited success, raising concerns for Africa’s only pheasant species.

While all guineafowls have mostly bare faces, the vulturine guineafowl’s long, naked neck and distinctive bill resemble those of vultures, as seen above at the Lincoln Children’s Zoo in Nebraska. Recent research suggests that these guineafowl not only live in stable social groups, but that the groups interact with one another, hinting at the type of socially complex society typically found only among big-brained animals. (Learn how animals experience emotions just like us.)