The Dusky Scrubfowl, Megapodius freycinet, is a medium-sized, approximately 41 cm. long, blackish bird with a short pointed crest, bare red facial skin, dark legs, brown iris and dark brown and yellow bill. The male and female are similar. This terrestrial species lives in forests, swamps and mangrove of the Maluku and Raja Ampat Islands in Indonesia. As other megapodes, the eggs are laid in a mound made from earth mixed with leaves, sand, gravel and sticks.

It often includes the Biak Scrubfowl as a subspecies, but the two are increasingly treated as separate species. On the contrary, many authorities consider the taxon forstenii as a separate species, the Forsten's Scrubfowl (M. forstenii), but measurements and molecular evidence suggests the two are very close, and arguably better considered conspecific. Traditionally, most members of the genus Megapodius have been listed as subspecies of M. freycinet, but today all major authorities consider this incorrect.

The specific name commemorates the French explorer Louis Claude Desaulses de Freycinet.

A fairly common species throughout a large part of its range, the Dusky Scrubfowl is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.