Indian Peafowl.

You probably know them as 'peacocks.' Which would be halfway right... they're actually peafowls... peacocks are just the male counterpart (when you think about it, it makes sense). And the female is called, you guessed it, a peahen.

Before I get to anything else, I'd like to point out that oddly, this is one of the few national birds that is sex-specific. India specifically has the peacock as the bird, not the peafowl. So the national bird isn't even the full species. Strange. Perhaps because the peahen is not quit so pleasant on the eyes (picture 2), at least in comparison to the peacock (picture 1).

So on to the bird. It's obvious why everyone can recognize one -- they're large, showy and have beautiful colors. Which all fits into the the insight they offer to evolutionary theory. Why would a bird need to be that colorful and over-the-top? The ladies are choosy. It may seem like an abritrary guideline to pick based on looks, but its very telling about the mate. The larger the feathers, the more vulnerable the peacock is to predators and the harder it is for them to mobilize. So if one can survive to adulthood with larger and more colorful feathers than another, this means that its able to compensate for its handicaps, or else it wouldn't be alive. It can also tell a female how healthy a male is -- unhealthy males will have dull colors. It should be noted that their feathers are irredescent, meaning they reflect diffferent colors based on lighting, which is pretty awesome.

What I find most fascinating is the relationship between the display and its immune system. Its very relatable to human behaviors:

The larger feathers, stronger colors and more active displays all require more testosterone than one without those attributes. More testosterone = weaker immune system. So how is this good? Like surviving against predators, it signifies to the female that though it weakens their immune system, their baseline health is better than others, or else the weaker immune system would weaken its chance of survival or their ability to compete. One with less testosterone doing the same display might have duller colors or die before maturity.

So the lesson is: looks do matter. Though it seems superficial, animals prefer certain looks over another because certain looks are associated with better health, better ability to hunt or provide for offspring, or any other set of criteria. Appearance is the culimination of all these things. Which explains why we as people tend to be largely attracted to the same types of features -- they might provide insight into their health or ability to provide, even if we don't conscientiously think about it in those terms. And no, I'm not saying we should use looks to base relationships because I think we define 'success' for ourselves and offspring as something else. And we have medical assistance to counter health problems, so it may not always necessarily be the most important to find someone who is naturally as healthy since we all depend on medical developments to counter shortcomings.

This is me rambling a little bit, but I think it's a good demonstration of the types of decisions people make and is a nice reminder of how we are animals and not in a totally separate set of rules. People who spend more money on cars, houses or whatever are telling others they can spend their money while still being able to have enough to provide for whoever it is they are trying to attract. A honda and a ferrari have the same function but one tells you more about the types of resources they have to 'waste.' I'm not saying its shallow or inappropriate. In fact I think I'm saying that there is evolutionary logic in explaining that behavior and that it's the same as we see in other animals, like peafowls.

Oh yea, and they have really annoying screams, so if you're ever in a place where there are a lot of peacocks, prepare to not sleep, they wine all night.