The ‘Injury Feigning’ Displays of the Red-Crowned Crane Available to Purchase

We observed feigning behavior by a male Red-crowned Crane (Grus japonensis) in Heilongjiang province, China. The male crane pretended to be injured to draw a larger intruder away from the young. The Red-crowned Crane held his quivering right wing pointed down at the ground, stretching his neck out, running quick short steps with an exaggerated limp (broken-wing ruse). Then, he spread both quivering wings and tail and ran with quick short steps (trailing wing ruse). These ‘injury feigning’ behaviors have not been recorded previously in this species, and this is only the third observation of these behavior in cranes (Gruidae).