Peacock is a popular term used to refer to Peafowls, but each time you say “peacock,” you see only the male peafowl.
Peafowl is a generic name for three species of birds of the genera Pavo and Afropavo of the Phasianidae family, the pheasants and their allies.
As mentioned above, the Male peafowl is called a peacock, while the female peafowl is referred to as peahens, but both the male and female peafowl are often colloquially referred to as “peacocks.
There are two Asiatic species of peafowl, namely the blue or Indian peafowl, which initially is of the Indian subcontinent and the green peafowl of Southeastern Asia.
One African species is known as the Congo peafowl, native to the Congo Basin only. The male peafowls are more famous than the females because of their piercing calls and majestic plumage.
The extravagant plumage is most prominent in the Asiatic species, as they have an eye-spotted “train” or “tail” of covert feathers, usually displayed as part of their courtship ritual.
Scientific classification
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Chordata
- Class: Aves
- Order: Galliformes
- Family: Phasianidae
- Subfamily: Phasianinae
Species
- Pavo cristatus
- Pavo muticus
- Afropavo congensis
The functions of the peacock’s elaborate iridescent coloration and broad “train” have been the subject of serious scientific debate.
Father of the evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin, suggested that the display attracted peahens, and the appealing features of the males had evolved through sexual selection.
Also, Amotz Zahavi recently proposed in his handicap theory that these attractive features served as honest signals of the males’ fitness since less fit males would be disadvantaged by the challenge of surviving with such prominent and conspicuous structures.
Plumage
The Indian peacock features an iridescent green and blue plumage, mostly metallic green and blue. However, the green peacock has bronze and green body feathers.
In both species of peafowl, the females are as large as the males but do not have the train and head ornament.
The peacock “tail,” known as a “train,” is not made up of tail quill feathers but many elongated upper tail coverts. These long feathers are naturally designed with eyespots, which is best seen when a peacock fans his tail.
Both males and females of all peafowl species have a crest at the top of their heads. The Indian peahen is easily believed to be the most colorful as it has a brown, dull grey, and green mixture in its plumage.
The female is also known to display her plumage to chase off female competition or as a sign of danger to her babies.
Green peafowl differs greatly from the Indian peafowl because the male has gold and green plumage with black wings and a blue sheen.
Unlike the Indian peafowl, the green peahen is so much like the male, with a more coppery neck, shorter upper tail coverts, and less iridescence.
The Congo peacock male behaves differently as he does not showcase his covert feathers but uses his actual tail feathers when engaging in courtship displays.
These feathers are a lot shorter than the ones of the Indian and green species, and they are less pronounced ocelli. Peahens of the African and Indian species are dull grey or brown and a combination of both.
Both male and female chicks of both sexes in all peafowl species are cryptically colored. The chicks vary between tawny and yellow, usually with patches of light tan, darker brown, and “dirty white” ivory.
Color and Pattern Variations
There are hybrids between green and Indian peafowl known as Spaldings, after the person hybridizing them successfully, Mrs. Keith Spalding. Unlike other hybrids, the Spalding is fertile and generally enjoys hybrid vigor.
Spaldings with a high-green phenotype do much better in cold temperatures than their counterpart, the cold-intolerant green peafowl, while still appearing like their green parents.
The plumage of individual Spalding varies, with some of them looking a lot more like green peafowl and others looking so much like the blue peafowl, though they most visually bear traits of both.
Aside from the wild-type “blue” coloration, hundreds of variations in patterns and color are recognized among peafowl breeders as different morphs of the Indian Blue.
Pattern variations in hybrids include solid-wing/black shoulder (the brown and black stripes on the wing of the peafowls are instead a solid color), pied, white-eye (the ocelli in a peacock’s eye feathers feature white spots rather than black), and silver pied (a bird that is mostly white with small patches of color).
Color variations include purple, white, Buford bronze, midnight, jade, opal, taupe, and charcoal, as well as the sex-linked colors cameo, purple, peach, and Sonja’s Violeta.
The United Peafowl Association must approve new patterns and color variations before they can be officially recognized as a morph among peafowl breeders.
Alternately-colored peahens and peacocks are born differently colored than the wild-type peafowl, and even though each unique color is easily recognizable at hatch, the peachick plumage does not always tally with their adult plumage.
Occasionally, you can find peafowls that appear with white plumage. Although there are albino peafowls, this is an infrequent occurrence, and almost all white peafowl that exist are not albinos; most of them have a genetic condition known as leucism, which causes their pigment cells not to migrate from the neural crest during their developmental stages.
Leucistic peafowl can produce pigment but cannot deposit it in their feathers. This leads to a total lack of coloration in their plumage and blue-grey eye color.
Pied peafowl have partial leucism, where not all pigment cells fail to migrate during formation, resulting in peafowls that have color but also have some patches that have no color; they, too, come with blue-grey eyes.
True albino peafowls, on the other hand, would have a total lack of melanin, causing irises that appear red or pink. Leucistic peachicks are yellow at birth and become completely white as they age.
Iridescence
Like many other birds, vibrant iridescent plumage colors are not mainly pigments but structural coloration.
This is best explained as optical interference Bragg reflections, which are based on regular and periodic nanostructures of the barbules (fiber-like components) of the bird’s feathers, produce the peacock’s colors.
Minor changes to the natural spacing of these barbules lead to different colors. A mixture of red and blue leads to brown feathers: While the periodic structure forms one color, the other is formed by a Fabry–Pérot interference peak from reflections from the inner and outer boundaries.
This structural coloration is responsible for the iridescence of the peacock’s hues.
The effects of Interference depend on a light angle instead of the actual pigments.
Behavior
Peafowl are naturally forest birds that roost on trees but nest on the ground. Peafowls are terrestrial feeders. All peafowl species are believed to be polygamous.
Like other members of the Galliformes family, the male peafowl possesses “thorns” or metatarsal spurs on their legs, used during intraspecific territorial battles with other species.
Diet
Peafowl are omnivores and mostly feed on flower petals, plant parts, seed heads, insects, other reptiles, arthropods, and even amphibians.
Wild peafowl look for food by scratching around in leaf litter at dusk or early morning. They go back into the shade and security of the forests during the hottest parts of the day.
These wild birds are not selective regarding food, so they will eat almost anything they can dig their beak into and digest. They are active hunters of insects like crickets, ants, and termites. They also hunt millipedes and other arthropods, as well as small mammals. The Indian peafowl also feeds on small snakes.
Domesticated peafowl can be fed with bread and cracked grain like corn and oats; they eat cooked rice, cheese, and occasionally cat food.
Keepers have noticed that peafowl enjoy protein-rich food, including meat. These larvae infest granaries, fruit, and vegetables like dark leafy greens, carrots, beans, broccoli, beets, and peas.
Peafowls are one of the most beautiful birds on earth. Though not evenly distributed worldwide, stories of their majestic appearance have traveled far and wide.