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Peacock
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A male peacock, Pavo cristatus, stands with its vibrant tail feathers fully fanned out in display before a brown-feathered peahen. Peacock coloration A male Indian peacock, Pavo cristatus, with vibrant blue neck and head and a long, colorful green tail with eye-like patterns, stands on a paved surface. A peacock stands with its vibrant green and blue tail feathers fully fanned out in display, showing eye-like patterns across the plumage. Male blue Indian peacock standing on grass with its vibrant tail feathers fully fanned out, displaying colorful eyespots in a courtship display.
See how game theory applies to the peacock's tail evolution
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A male peacock, Pavo cristatus, stands with its vibrant tail feathers fully fanned out in display before a brown-feathered peahen.
blue peacock The blue, or Indian, peacock (Pavo cristatus) displaying before a peahen. Males often form a harem of females during the breeding season.

Peacock

bird
Also known as: peafowl, peahen
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Peacock, any of three species of resplendent birds of the pheasant family, Phasianidae (order Galliformes). Strictly, the male is a peacock, and the female is a peahen; both are peafowl. The two most-recognizable species of peafowl are the blue, or Indian, peacock (Pavo cristatus), of India and Sri Lanka, and the green, or Javanese, peacock (P. muticus), found from Myanmar (Burma) to Java. The Congo peacock (Afropavo congensis), which inhabits the forested interior of the...

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