Indian Peafowl

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Indian Peafowl
An Indian Peacock.
Conservation status
Least Concern
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Galliformes Family: Phasianidae Genus: Pavo Species: P. cristatus
Binomial name
Pavo cristatus Linnaeus, 1758

The Indian Peafowl, Pavo cristatus also known as the Common Peafowl or the Blue Peafowl is one of the species of bird in the genus Pavo of the Phasianidae family known as peafowl. The Indian Peafowl is a resident breeder in eastern Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka. The peacock is the national bird of India.

The species is found in dry semi-desert grasslands, scrub and deciduous forests. It forages and nests on the ground but roosts on top of trees. It eats mainly seeds, but also some insects, fruits and reptiles.

The male is called a peacock, the female a peahen. The Indian Peacock has beautiful iridescent blue-green plumage. The upper tail coverts are enormously elongated and ornate with an eye at the end of each feather. The female plumage is a mixture of dull green, grey and iridescent blue, with the greenish-grey predominating. In the breeding season, females stand apart by lacking the long tail feathers also known as train and in the non-breeding season they can be distinguished from males by the green colour of the neck as opposed to the blue on the males.

Peafowl are most notable for the male's extravagant tail also known as a train, a result of sexual selection, which it displays as part of courtship. This train is in reality not the tail but the enormously elongated upper tail coverts. The tail itself is brown and short as in the peahen.

They lay a clutch of 4-8 eggs which take 28 days to hatch. The eggs are light brown and are laid every other day usually in the afternoon. The male does not assist with the rearing, and is polygamous with up to six hens.

Contents 1 Mutations 2 Hybridization and concerns 3 Cultural references 4 See also 5 References 6 Gallery 7 External links

[edit] Mutations

Peafowl are sometimes kept as domesticated animals for decoration. Many genetic mutations exist, such as the Black-Shouldered, Oaten, White, Purple, Opal, Pied, and Midnight.

The "Black-Shouldered" mutant was originally thought to be a distinct subspecies, Pavo cristatus nigripennis.

The White Peafowl is often mistaken for an albino, but its iris is dark, not red, and is a recessive mutation.

[edit] Hybridization and concerns

The Indian Peafowl can hybridise with the closely related Green Peafowl, Pavo muticus, in captivity and creates offspring called "Spauldings" or "Spaldings". The original "Spalding" was a hybrid between a female of the Black-Shouldered mutation of the Indian Peafowl, with a male of the nominate Java subspecies of the Green Peafowl, though some believe it was really a cross between a Black-Shouldered male with a Green Peafowl hen of the subspecies imperator.

Even though there is no natural range overlap, hybridization occurs in the wild when feral populations of one of the species overlaps another species. Hybridization has created some concern as the Green Peafowl is endangered.

[edit] Cultural references

In the Middle Ages, the flesh of the peafowl was highly prestigious and believed to be imperishable. Thanks to its reputation of being immortal it was also a symbol of the Catholic church. Though its meat is tough and not well-suited for consumption, it was was prized due to being a luxury and often domesticated for human consumption by the medieval nobility and was often served at banquets as a subtlety. This was usually done by skinning the bird, cooking, grinding up and seasoning the flesh, and then redressing it in its own plumage and serving it in a lifelike pose by bracing it with wooden struts. It was also common to discard the meat, and stuff the colorful plumage with the meat of tastier domestic fowl such as goose or chicken to please and entertain diners.

[edit] See also

• Peafowl
• Congo Peafowl
• Green Peafowl

[edit] References

• Blau, S.K. (Jan. 2004). "Light as a Feather: Structural Elements Give Peacock Plumes Their Color". Physics Today 57 (1): 18–20. Retrieved on 2006-09-27. 
• Grimmett, R.; Inskipp, C., and Inskipp, T. (1999). Birds of India: Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-04910-6. 
• Loyau, A.; Saint Jalme, M., and Cagniant, C. (2005-05-03). "Multiple sexual advertisements honestly reflect health status in peacocks (Pavo cristatus)". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 58 (6): 552-557. ISSN 0340-5443 (Print); ISSN 1432-0762 (Online). Retrieved on 2006-09-27. 

[edit] Gallery

Indian Blue Peacock displays on a rooftop at the Toronto Zoo

Indian Blue Peacock displaying at the Denver Zoo

Indian blue peacock displays at the San Diego Zoo

[edit] External links

• BirdLife International (2004). Pavo cristatus. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 27 September 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
• BirdLife Species Factsheet
• Indian peafowl videos on the Internet Bird Collection