peacock

Technically, the male of any of various large pheasants, order Galliformes. The name is most often used for the common peacock Pavo cristatus, a bird of the pheasant family, native to South Asia. It is rather larger than a pheasant. The male has a large fan-shaped tail, brightly coloured with blue, green, and purple ‘eyes’ on a chestnut background, that is raised during courtship displays. The female (peahen) is brown with a small tail.

The hen lays 4–8 eggs in the spring, and incubation takes 30 days. She remains with her chicks eight months. The green peacock, P. muticus, native to Southeast Asia, breeds freely with the common peacock. A third species, Afropavus congensis, was discovered in the late 1930s in the forests of the Congo. These are much smaller than the common peacock and do not have erectile tail coverts.