Indian peafowl

The bird with a hundred "eyes" on its tail

When a peacock fans out its 'tail', 200 eye patterns appear — that's how it charms the peahen. It isn't really a tail but long decorative feathers, shed and regrown every year. The peacock is India's national bird and roams free there. Before rain it calls loudly. It sleeps in trees to escape foxes.

The Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) is a pheasant of the Indian subcontinent and India's national bird (1963). The male's 'train' is about 200 elongated upper-tail feathers, 1.5 m long; the colour is not pigment but light interference in the feather microstructure (structural colour). Darwin wrote that 'the sight of a feather in a peacock's tail makes me sick' — he developed sexual selection theory largely for this bird; peahens pick males with more 'eyes' and better symmetry. During display the feathers vibrate at 26 Hz — an infrasound signal. Omnivorous: grain, insects, snakes (even cobra hatchlings). Phoenicians brought it to the Middle East 3,000 years ago, then to Europe; in Hinduism it accompanies Kartikeya and Saraswati.

Fun facts

• A peacock feather's colour is not pigment but a trick of light, so it shifts with the angle.
• The peacock's 'tail' is really upper-tail feathers, shed and regrown yearly.
• Peacocks eat baby cobras.