Red junglefowl
The red junglefowl, also known as the Indian red junglefowl, is a species of tropical, galliform bird in the phasianid family, found across much of Southeast and parts of South Asia.
The red junglefowl was the primary species to give rise to today's many breeds of domesticated chicken. Lesser contributions came from the grey junglefowl, Sri Lankan junglefowl and the Javanese green junglefowl. Whole genome sequencing has revealed that the chicken was first domesticated from red junglefowl ca. 8,000 years ago, with this domestication event involving multiple maternal origins.
The domesticated variant is raised worldwide by humans in their tens of billions for their meat, eggs, colourful plumage and companionship. The wild form of G. gallus is sometimes used in zoos, parks or botanical gardens as a form of pest control, similarly to—and often kept with—the Indian peafowl or the helmeted guinea fowl.
Taxonomy
The red junglefowl was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Phasianus gallus. Linnaeus specified the type locality as "India orientali" but this has been restricted to the island of Pulo Condor off the coast of Vietnam. The red junglefowl is now one of the four species placed in the genus Gallus that was introduced in 1760 by Mathurin Jacques Brisson. The word gallus is Latin for a farmyard cockerel.Subspecies
Five subspecies of G. gallus are recognised:- G. g. murghi Robinson & Kloss, 1920 – north India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh
- G. g. spadiceus – northeast India to south China, Malay Peninsula and north Sumatra
- G. g. jabouillei Delacour & Kinnear, 1928 – south China to north Vietnam and north Laos
- G. g. gallus – south Myanmar through Indochina
- G. g. bankiva Temminck, 1813 – Java and Bali
Description
The plumage of the male is much brighter in colouration than that of the female, which is a drab colour and more suitable for camouflage. The mantle of the rooster typically has long, golden hackle feathers. The tail consists of 14 iridescent feathers that shimmer with blue, purple, and green in direct light. Some of these tail feathers are long and curved, and can grow up to in length. The whole bird may be as long as. Hens lack the long, ornate feathers that are a prominent feature of the roosters.
The colouration of the males varies somewhat, depending on the subspecies. For example, some have golden yellow covert feathers from the neck to the lower back with greenish-black tail feathers, while others have red with black tails.
A moult around June changes the plumage of breeding adults to an eclipse pattern, which lasts through October. The male eclipse pattern includes black feathers on the back and small red-orange plumes distributed across the mantle. The eclipse plumage of the hen is generally indistinguishable from the plumage at other seasons, but the molting schedule is the same as that of the rooster.
The male has a much larger comb and wattle compared with the female. Roosters have a sharp, bony growth on the back of each leg, just behind and above the foot. These spurs are used as a defense mechanism against predators and to establish dominance in the flock.
Range
The native geographic range of the red junglefowl extends from Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh in the west, eastwards across southern China, to Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, and south/southeast into Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Timor-Leste.The species has been introduced in Australia, Dominican Republic, Fiji, Hawaii, Jamaica, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, and Puerto Rico.
Habitat
Red junglefowl prefer disturbed habitats and edges, both natural and human-created. The forage and thick cover in these sorts of areas are attractive to junglefowl, especially nesting females. Junglefowl use both deforested and regenerating forests, and often are found near human settlements or areas of regrowth from slash-and-burn agriculture. Areas burned to promote bamboo growth also attract junglefowl, with edible bamboo seeds more available. In some areas, red junglefowl are absent from silvicultural and rubber plantations; elsewhere, they will occur in both tea plant and palm oil plantations. In the state of Selangor, Malaysia, palm foliage provides suitable cover; palm nut fruit provides adequate food, as well as insects within, and adjacent to, the trees. The palms also offer an array of roost sites, from the low perches favored by females with chicks to the higher perches used by other adults.Red junglefowl drink surface water when it is available, but they do not require it. Birds in north-central India visit water holes frequently during the dry season, although not all junglefowl on the subcontinent live close enough to water to do so; population densities may thus be lower, where surface water is limited.
Behaviour
The red junglefowl is shy of humans, compared with the domesticated chicken. The eggs and chicks are cared for only by the hens.Male birds announce their presence with the well-known "cock-a-doodle-doo" call, referred to as "crowing". This both attracts potential mates and makes other male birds in the area aware of the risk of fighting a breeding competitor. The crowing of roosters is controlled by their circadian clock. When one rooster announces the break of dawn, others in the vicinity immediately follow.
Chickens are highly social animals, and a strict pecking order exists in flocks. The top-ranking rooster always crows first, followed by its subordinates, in descending order of social rank.
Their call structure is complex and they have distinctive alarm calls for aerial and ground predators to which others react appropriately. Male red junglefowl have a shorter crowing sound than domestic roosters; the call cuts off abruptly at the end.
Red junglefowl regularly bathe in dust to keep the right balance of oil in their plumage. The dust absorbs extra oil and subsequently falls off.Flight in these birds is almost purely confined to reaching their roosting areas at sunset in trees or any other high and relatively safe places free from ground predators, and for escape from immediate danger through the day.
Dominant male junglefowl appear to defend a territory against other dominant males, and the size of the territories has been inferred based on the proximity of roosts. Beebe concluded that territories were rather small, especially as compared to some of the pheasants with which he was familiar. This was supported by Collias and Collias, who reported that adjacent roost sites can be as close as. Within flocks, male red junglefowl exhibit dominance hierarchies, and dominant males tend to have larger combs than subordinate males. Red junglefowl typically live in flocks of one to a few males and several females. Males are more likely to occur alone than females.
Diet
Red junglefowl are attracted to areas with ripe fruit or seeds, including fruit plantations, fields of domestic grain, and stands of bamboo. Although junglefowl typically eat fallen fruits and seeds on the ground, they occasionally forage in trees by perching on branches and feeding on hanging fruit. Fruits and seeds of scores of plant species have been identified from junglefowl crops, along with grasses, leaves, roots, and tubers. In addition, red junglefowl capture a wide variety of arthropods, other invertebrates, and vertebrates such as small lizards. Even mammalian faeces may be consumed. Many of these items are taken opportunistically as the birds forage, although some arthropods, such as termites, are taken in large quantities; about 1,000 individual termites have been found in a single crop. Plant materials constitute a higher proportion of the diet of adult red junglefowl than do arthropods and other animals. In contrast, chicks eat mostly adult and larval insects, earthworms, and only occasional plant material.Reproduction
Males make a food-related display called "tidbitting", performed upon finding food in the presence of a female. The display is composed of coaxing, cluck-like calls, and eye-catching bobbing and twitching motions of the head and neck. During the performance, the male repeatedly picks up and drops the food item with his beak. The display usually ends when the hen takes the food item either from the ground or directly from the male's beak. Eventually, they sometimes mate.In many areas, red junglefowl breed during the dry portion of the year, typically winter or spring. This is true in parts of India, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. However, year-round breeding by red junglefowl has been documented in palm oil plantations in Malaysia and also may occur elsewhere. During the laying period, red junglefowl females lay an egg every day. Eggs take 21 days to develop. Chicks fledge in about 4 to 5 weeks, and at 12 weeks old they are chased out of the group by their mother — at which point they start a new group or join an existing one. Sexual maturity is reached at 5 months, with females taking slightly longer than males to reach maturity.
Dominant males attempt to maintain exclusive reproductive access to females, though females choose to mate with subordinate males about 40% of the time in a free-ranging feral flock in San Diego, California.