The species name colchicus is Latin for 'of Colchis' (modern day Georgia), a country on the Black Sea where pheasants became known to Europeans.

The ring-necked subspecies group in particular are commonly bred and were introduced to many parts of the world; the game farm stock, though no distinct breeds have been developed yet, can be considered semi-domesticated.

Though the species produce fertile hybrids wherever they coexist, this is simply a typical feature among fowl (Galloanseres), in which postzygotic isolating mechanisms are slight compared to most other birds.

These are due to captive breeding and hybridisation between subspecies and with the green pheasant, reinforced by continual releases of stock from varying sources to the wild.

For example, the "ring-necked pheasants" common in Europe, North America and Australia do not pertain to any specific taxon, they rather represent a stereotyped hybrid swarm.

Juvenile birds have the appearance of the female with a shorter tail until young males begin to grow characteristic bright feathers on the breast, head and back at about 10 weeks after hatching.

[9] The green pheasant (P. versicolor) is very similar, and hybridisation often makes the identity of individual farmed birds difficult to determine.

The former are rather commonly released in some areas and are named "tenebrosus pheasant"[citation needed] or simply "melanistic mutant".

His sources are the Ornithologia of Ulisse Aldrovandi,[13] Giovanni Pietro Olina's Uccelliera,[14] John Ray's Synopsis methodica Avium & Piscium,[15] and A Natural History of the Birds by Eleazar Albin.

Whereas in most other species, Linnaeus felt it warranted to cite plumage details from his sources, in the common pheasant's case he simply referred to the reason of the bird's fame: principum mensis dicatur.

[20] In China, meanwhile, the species is properly called zhi ji (雉鸡), "pheasant-fowl", essentially implying the same as the English name "common pheasant".

As elsewhere, P. colchicus is such a familiar bird in China that it is usually just referred to as shan ji (山雞), "mountain chicken",[21] a Chinese term for pheasants in general.

As noted above, introduced populations have mixed the alleles of various races by various amounts, differing according to the original stock used for introductions and what natural selection according to climate and habitat has made of that.

An investigation into the genetic relationships of subspecies suggested that the common pheasant originated from the forests of southeastern China.

The lack of agreement between morphology-based subspecies delimitation and their genetic relationships is thought to be attributed to past isolation followed by more recent population mixing as the pheasant has expanded its range across the Palaearctic.

However, captive bred common pheasants can show strong sexual segregation, in space and time, with sex differences in the use of feeding stations throughout the day.

Common pheasants nest solely on the ground in scrapes, lined with some grass and leaves, frequently under dense cover or a hedge.

[36] Common pheasants produce a clutch of around 8–15 eggs, sometimes as many as 18, but usually 10 to 12; they are pale olive in colour, and laid over a 2–3 week period in April to June in the Northern Hemisphere.

[37][38] Additionally it seems that they had a continuous range in Turkey from the Sea of Marmara on the edge of the Balkans, across the northern shore of the country till Caucasus.

[41] Besides the Balkans the species lives in Europe in the area north of Caucasus where the local subspecies P.c.septentrionalis survives pure around the lower reaches of the Samur River.

[42] Common pheasants can now be found across the globe due to their readiness to breed in captivity and the fact they can naturalise in many climates, but were known to be introduced in Europe, North America, Japan and New Zealand.

Pheasants were hunted in their natural range by Stone Age humans just like the grouse, partridges, junglefowls and perhaps peafowls that inhabited Europe at that time.

Pheasants are well adapted to the British climate and breed naturally in the wild without human supervision in copses, heaths and commons.

As the original Caucasian stock all but disappeared during the Early Modern era, most 'dark-winged ringless' birds in the UK are actually descended from 'Chinese ring-necked' and 'green pheasant' hybrids,[46] which were commonly used for rewilding.

Common pheasants were introduced in North America in 1773,[47] and have become well established throughout much of the Rocky Mountain states (Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, etc.

[53] Pheasant hunting is very popular in much of the US, especially in the Great Plains states, where a mix of farmland and native grasslands provides ideal habitat.

[54] There are a number of negative effects of common pheasants on other game birds, including: nest parasitism, disease, aggression, and competition for resources.

[59] A variety of management strategies have been suggested for areas that are home to species that are particularly threatened by pheasants, such as the prairie chickens and grey partridge.

King George V shot over 1,000 pheasants out of a total bag of 3,937 over a six-day period in December 1913 during a competition with a friend; however, he did not do enough to beat him.

The Roald Dahl novel Danny the Champion of the World featured a poacher (and his son) who lived in the UK and illegally hunted common pheasants.