The species are:
The Green Peafowl appears different from the Indian Peafowl. The male has green and gold plumage and has an erect crest. The wings are black with a sheen of blue. Unlike the Indian Peafowl, the Green Peahen is similar to the male, only having shorter upper tail coverts and less iridescence. It is difficult to tell a juvenile male from an adult female.
As with many birds, vibrant plumage colours are not primarily pigments, but optical interference Bragg reflections, based on regular, periodic nanostructures of the barbules (fiber-like components) of the feathers. Slight changes to the spacing result in different colours. Brown feathers are a mixture of red and blue: one colour is created by the periodic structure, and the other is a created by a Fabry–Pérot interference peak from reflections from the outer and inner boundaries. Such interference-based structural colour is important for the peacock's iridescent hues that change and shimmer with viewing angle, since unlike pigments, interference effects depend on light angle.
Colour mutations exist through selective breeding, such as the leucistic White Peafowl and the Black-Shouldered Peafowl.
Seven year study of free living peacocks, conducted in Japan came to the conclusion that female peahens are virtually indifferent towards the male display of plumage. This study cast serious doubts on a long held belief of the role of sexual selection in forming the brilliant plumage of male peacock.
Joseph Jordania recently suggested that the peacock's brilliantly colored and oversized tail, as well as its piercing, loud call, evolved through the forces of natural selection, not sexual selection, and were primarily designed to intimidate rivals and competitors, not to attract females.
Both species of Peafowl are believed to be polygamous. However, it has been suggested that "females" entering a male Green Peafowl's territory are really his own juvenile or sub-adult young (K. B. Woods in lit. 2000) and that Green Peafowl are really monogamous in the wild. The male peacock flares out his feathers when he is trying to get the female's attention.
During the mating season they will often emit a very loud high-pitched cry. They also travel in hunting packs between ten and ninety.
In common with other members of the Galliformes, males possess metatarsal spurs or "thorns" used primarily during intraspecific fights.
In Greco-Roman mythology the Peacock is identified with the goddess Hera (Juno). The eyes upon the peacock's tail comes from Argus whose hundred eyes were placed upon the peacock's feathers by the goddess in memory of his role as the guard of Io, a lover of Zeus that Hera had punished. The eyes are said to symbolize the vault of heaven and the "eyes" of the stars.
In Babylonia and Persia the Peacock is seen as a guardian to royalty, and is often seen in engravings upon the thrones of royalty.
In Christianity, the peacock is an ancient symbol of eternal life. The Peacock symbolism represents the "all-seeing" church, along with the holiness and sanctity associated with it. Additionally, the Peacock represents resurrection, renewal and immortality within the spiritual teachings of Christianity. Themes of renewal are also linked to alchemical traditions to, as many schools of thought compare the resurrecting phoenix to the modern-day Peacock.
Melek Taus ( - Kurdish Tawûsê Melek), the Peacock Angel, is the Yazidi name for the central figure of their faith. The Yazidi consider Tawûsê Melek an emanation of God and a benevolent angel who has redeemed himself from his fall and has become a demiurge who created the cosmos from the Cosmic egg. After he repented, he wept for 7,000 years, his tears filling seven jars, which then quenched the fires of hell. In art and sculpture, Tawûsê Melek is depicted as a peacock. However, peacocks are not native to the lands where Tawûsê Melek is worshipped.
In 1956, John J. Graham created an abstraction of an eleven-feathered peacock logo for American broadcaster NBC. This brightly hued peacock was adopted due to the increase in colour programming. NBC's first colour broadcasts showed only a still frame of the colourful peacock. The emblem made its first on-air appearance on May 22, 1956. The current version of the logo debuted in 1986 and has six feathers (yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, green).
A stylized peacock in full display is the logo for the Pakistan Television Corporation.
In some cultures the peacock is also a symbol of pride or vanity, due to the way the bird struts and shows off its plumage.
* Category:Pheasants Category:Heraldic birds Category:Birds kept as pets
ar:طاووس av:ТӀавус br:Paun ca:Paó nv:Tsídii bitseeʼ naashchʼąąʼí el:Παγώνι es:Pavo eo:Pavo fa:طاووس fr:Paon gu:મોર ko:공작 (동물) io:Pavono bpy:পাভ্যাও id:Merak kn:ನವಿಲು sw:Tausi lbe:ТӀавс лелуххи lij:Pavon hu:Páva mr:मोर ms:Burung Merak nl:Pauw (vogel) ne:मयूर ja:クジャク no:Påfugler nn:Påfugl oc:Pavon pt:Pavão ro:Păun sa:मयूरः simple:Peafowl sr:Паун ta:மயில் te:నెమలి th:นกยูง tr:Tavus kuşu vi:Công (chim) zh-yue:孔雀This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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