Red junglefowl | |
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Male red junglefowl | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Galliformes |
Family: | Phasianidae |
Genus: | Gallus |
Species: | G. gallus |
Binomial name | |
Gallus gallus | |
Red junglefowl (Brown) | |
Synonyms | |
Phasianus gallusLinnaeus, 1758 |
The red junglefowl (Gallus gallus), also known as the Indian red junglefowl (and formerly the bankiva or bankiva-fowl), is a species of tropical, predominantly terrestrial bird in the fowl and pheasant family, Phasianidae, 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 (G. g. domesticus); additionally, the related grey junglefowl (G. sonneratii), Sri Lankan junglefowl (G. lafayettii) and the Javanese green junglefowl (G. varius) have also contributed genetic material to the gene pool of the modern chicken. [2] [3]
Molecular evidence, derived from whole-genome sequencing, has revealed that the chicken was first domesticated from red junglefowl ca. 8,000 years ago, [2] with this domestication-event involving multiple maternal origins. [2] [4] Since then, the domestic form has spread around the world, and they are bred by humans in their millions for meat, eggs, colourful plumage and companionship. [5] Outside of their native range, mainly in the Americas and Europe, the wild form of Gallus gallus is sometimes used in zoos, parks or botanical gardens as a free-ranging form of beneficial "pest control", similarly to—and often kept with—the Indian blue peafowl ( Pavo cristatus) or the helmeted guineafowl (Numidameleagris); hybridisation has been documented between Gallus and Numida. [6]
The red jungle fowl has 5 recognized subspecies: [7]
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Cladogram showing the species in the genus Gallus . [2] [8] |
The nominate race of red junglefowl has a mix of feather colours, with orange, brown, red, gold, grey, white, olive, and even metallic green plumage. The tail of the male rooster can grow up to 28 centimetres (11 in), and the whole bird may be as long as 70 centimetres (28 in). There are 14 tail feathers. A moult in June changes the bird's plumage to an eclipse pattern, which lasts through October. The male eclipse pattern includes a black feather in the middle of the back and small red-orange plumes spread across the body. Female eclipse plumage is generally indistinguishable from the plumage at other seasons, but the moulting schedule is the same as that of males. [9]
Compared to the more familiar domestic chicken, the red junglefowl has a much smaller body mass (around 2+1⁄4 lbs (1 kg) in females and 3+1⁄4 lbs (1.5 kg) in males) and is brighter in coloration. [9] Junglefowl are also behaviourally different from domestic chickens, being naturally very shy of humans compared to the much tamer domesticated subspecies.
Male junglefowl are significantly larger than females and have brightly coloured decorative feathers. The male's tail is composed of long, arching feathers that initially look black, but shimmer with blue, purple, and green in direct light. He also has long, golden hackle feathers on his neck and his back. The female's plumage is typical of this family of birds in being cryptic and adapted for camouflage. She alone looks after the eggs and chicks. She also has a very small comb and wattles (fleshy ornaments on the head that signal good health to rivals and potential mates) compared to the males.
During their mating season, the male birds announce their presence with the well-known "cock-a-doodle-doo" call or crowing. [10] Within flocks, only dominant males crow. [11] Male red junglefowl have a shorter crowing sound than domestic roosters; the call cuts off abruptly at the end. [10] This serves both to attract potential mates and to make other male birds in the area aware of the risk of fighting a breeding competitor. A spur on the lower leg just behind and above the foot serves in such fighting. Their call structure is complex and they have distinctive alarm calls for aerial and ground predators to which others react appropriately. [12] [13]
G. gallus has three transferrins, all of which cluster closely with other vertebrates' orthologs. [14]
The range of the wild form stretches from India, Nepal and Bangladesh in the west, and eastwards across southern China, to Indochina; south/southeast into Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Junglefowl/Chickens were one of three main animals (along with domesticated pigs and dogs) carried by early Austronesian peoples from Island Southeast Asia in their voyages to the islands of Oceania in prehistory, starting around 5,000 years BP [ citation needed ]. Today, their modern descendants are found throughout Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. [15]
Red junglefowl prefer disturbed habitats and edges, both natural and human-created. The forage [11] [16] [17] and thick cover in these sorts of areas are attractive to junglefowl, especially nesting females. [18] Junglefowl use both deforested and regenerating forests, [19] and often are found near human settlements [20] or areas of regrowth from slash-and-burn cultivation. [11] Areas burned to promote bamboo growth also attract junglefowl, with edible bamboo seeds more available. [17] [18] In some areas, red junglefowl are absent from silvicultural [19] and rubber [21] plantations; elsewhere, they will occur in both tea plants and palm oil plantations. [21] In the state of Selangor, Malaysia, palm foliage provides suitable cover; palm nut fruit provides adequate food, as well as insects (and their larvae) within, and adjacent to, the trees. [22] The palms also offer an array of roost sites, from the low perches (~4 m) favored by females with chicks to the higher perches (up to 12 m) used by other adults. [23]
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; [18] population densities may thus be lower, where surface water is limited. [17]
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. [24]
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. [25]
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 [20] 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, [18] who reported that adjacent roost sites can be as close as 100 metres (330 ft). Within flocks, male red junglefowl exhibit dominance hierarchies, and dominant males tend to have larger combs than subordinate males. [26] Red junglefowl typically live in flocks of one to a few males and several females. Males are more likely to occur alone than females. [11] [17] [18] [27] [28] [29]
Males make a food-related display called "tidbitting", performed upon finding food in the presence of a female. [30] 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. [31]
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. [11] [17] [18] [27] [28] [29] However, year-round breeding by red junglefowl has been documented in palm oil plantations in Malaysia [22] and also may occur elsewhere. [28] 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. [9]
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. [32] [33]
Red junglefowl are attracted to areas with ripe fruit or seeds, [18] including fruit plantations, [21] fields of domestic grain, [20] and stands of bamboo. [11] 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. [11] Fruits and seeds of scores of plant species have been identified from junglefowl crops, along with grasses, leaves, roots, and tubers. [11] [34] In addition, red junglefowl capture a wide variety of arthropods, other invertebrates, and vertebrates such as small lizards. Even mammalian faeces may be consumed. [11] 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. [11] [18] 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. [11]
Chickens were created when red junglefowl were domesticated for human use around 8,000 years ago [2] as subspecies Gallus gallus domesticus. They are now a major source of food for humans. However, undomesticated red junglefowl still represent an important source of meat and eggs in their endemic range. The undomesticated form is sometimes used in cock-fighting. [9]
In 2012, a study examined mitochondrial DNA recovered from ancient bones from Europe, Thailand, the Pacific, and Chile, and from Spanish colonial sites in Florida and the Dominican Republic, in directly dated samples originating in Europe at 1,000 BP and in the Pacific at 3,000 BP. The chicken was primarily domesticated from red junglefowl, with subsequent genetic contributions from grey junglefowl, Sri Lankan junglefowl, and green junglefowl. [2] Domestication occurred about 8,000 years ago, as based on molecular evidence [2] from a common ancestor flock in the bird's natural range, and then proceeded in waves both east and west. [35] [36] Zoogeography and evolutionary biology point to the original domestication site of chickens as somewhere in Mainland Southeast Asia and southern China in the Neolithic. Chickens were one of the ancestral domesticated animals of the Austronesian peoples. They were transported to Taiwan and the Philippines around 5,500 to 4,500 years ago. From there, they spread outwards with the Austronesian migrations to the rest of Island Southeast Asia, Micronesia, Island Melanesia, and Polynesia in prehistoric times. [37]
Other archaeological evidence suggests domestication dates around 7,400 BP from the Chishan site, in the Hebei province of China. However, the domestication event in China has now been disputed by several studies citing unfavourable weather conditions at the time. [35] [36] In the Ganges region of India, wild red junglefowl were being used by humans as early as 7,000 years ago. No domestic chicken remains older than 4,000 years have been identified in the Indus Valley, and the antiquity of chickens recovered from excavations at Mohenjodaro is still debated. [5]
NCBI genome ID | 111 |
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Ploidy | diploid |
Number of chromosomes | 78 |
Year of completion | 2012 |
The other three members of the genus — Sri Lanka junglefowl (G. lafayetii), grey junglefowl (G. sonneratii), and green junglefowl (G. varius) — do not usually produce fertile hybrids with the red junglefowl. However, supporting the hypothesis of a hybrid origin, research published in 2008 found that the gene responsible for the yellow skin of the domestic chicken most likely originated in the closely related grey junglefowl and not from the red junglefowl. [3] Similarly, a 2020 study that analysed the whole genomes of Sri Lanka junglefowl, grey junglefowl, and green junglefowl found strong introgressive hybridisation events in different populations of indigenous village chickens. [2] The study also shows that 71–79% of red junglefowl DNA is shared with the domestic chicken. [2] A culturally significant hybrid between the red junglefowl and the green junglefowl in Indonesia is known as the bekisar .
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Wild-type red junglefowl are thought to be facing threats due to hybridisation at forest edges, where domesticated free-ranging chickens are common. [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] The red junglefowl is considered near threatened in Singapore. [49] Nevertheless, they are classified by the IUCN as a species of least concern.
Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of harvesting animal products such as meat, eggs or feathers. The practice of raising poultry is known as poultry farming. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes. The term also includes waterfowls of the family Anatidae but does not include wild birds hunted for food known as game or quarry.
The chicken is a large and round short-winged bird, domesticated from the red junglefowl of Southeast Asia around 8,000 years ago. Most chickens are raised for food, providing meat and eggs; others are kept as pets or for cockfighting.
The turkey is a large bird in the genus Meleagris, native to North America. There are two extant turkey species: the wild turkey of eastern and central North America and the ocellated turkey of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Males of both turkey species have a distinctive fleshy wattle, called a snood, that hangs from the top of the beak. They are among the largest birds in their ranges. As with many large ground-feeding birds, the male is bigger and much more colorful than the female.
Galliformes is an order of heavy-bodied ground-feeding birds that includes turkeys, chickens, quail, and other landfowl. Gallinaceous birds, as they are called, are important in their ecosystems as seed dispersers and predators, and are often reared by humans for their meat and eggs, or hunted as game birds.
The common pheasant, ring-necked pheasant, or blue-headed pheasant, a bird in the pheasant family (Phasianidae). The genus name comes from Latin phasianus, "pheasant". The species name colchicus is Latin for "of Colchis", a country on the Black Sea where pheasants became known to Europeans. Although Phasianus was previously thought to be closely related to the genus Gallus, the genus of junglefowl and domesticated chickens, recent studies show that they are in different subfamilies, having diverged over 20 million years ago.
The Phasianidae are a family of heavy, ground-living birds, which includes pheasants, partridges, junglefowl, chickens, turkeys, Old World quail, and peafowl. The family includes many of the most popular gamebirds. The family includes 185 species divided into 54 genera. It was formerly broken up into two subfamilies, the Phasianinae and the Perdicinae. However, this treatment is now known to be paraphyletic and polyphyletic, respectively, and more recent evidence supports breaking it up into two subfamilies: Rollulinae and Phasianinae, with the latter containing multiple tribes within two clades. The New World quail (Odontophoridae) and guineafowl (Numididae) were formerly sometimes included in this family, but are now typically placed in families of their own; conversely, grouse and turkeys, formerly often treated as distinct families, are now known to be deeply nested within Phasianidae, so they are now included in the present family.
Junglefowl are the only four living species of bird from the genus Gallus in the bird order Galliformes, and occur in parts of South and Southeast Asia. One of the species in this genus, the red junglefowl, is of historical importance as the direct ancestor of the domestic chicken, although the grey junglefowl, Sri Lankan junglefowl and green junglefowl are likely to have also been involved. The Sri Lankan junglefowl is the national bird of Sri Lanka. They diverged from their common ancestor about 4–6 million years ago. Although originating in Asia, remains of junglefowl bones have also been found in regions of Chile, which date back to 1321–1407 CE, providing evidence of possible Polynesian migration through the Pacific Ocean.
A feral animal or plant is one that lives in the wild but is descended from domesticated individuals. As with an introduced species, the introduction of feral animals or plants to non-native regions may disrupt ecosystems and has, in some cases, contributed to extinction of indigenous species. The removal of feral species is a major focus of island restoration.
The Sri Lankan junglefowl, also known as the Ceylon junglefowl or Lafayette's junglefowl, is a member of the Galliformes bird order which is endemic to Sri Lanka, where it is the national bird. It is closely related to the red junglefowl, the wild junglefowl from which the chicken was domesticated. However, it is even more closely related to the grey junglefowl. Sri Lankan junglefowl and red junglefowl diverged about 2.8 million years ago, whereas time of divergence between the Sri Lankan junglefowl and grey junglefowl was 1.8 million years ago.
Plumage is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can be different colour morphs. The placement of feathers on a bird is not haphazard but rather emerges in organized, overlapping rows and groups, and these feather tracts are known by standardized names.
The gray junglefowl, also known as Sonnerat's junglefowl, is one of the wild ancestors of the domestic chicken together with the red junglefowl and other junglefowls.
The green junglefowl, also known as Javan junglefowl, forktail or green Javanese junglefowl, is the most distantly related and the first to diverge at least 4 million years ago among the four species of the junglefowl. Hybridization with domestic chicken has also been reported. Green junglefowl is a medium-sized bird in the pheasant family Phasianidae.
The Yurlov Crower is an old Russian breed of chicken primarily selected and used for long crowing cock contests in Russia.
The Bekisar, or Ayam Bekisar, is the first-generation hybrid offspring of the green junglefowl and domesticated red junglefowl from Java. The roosters have a glossy blackish-green plumage and are highly prized for their loud clear calls and striking colouration, while the hens are usually dull and infertile.
Gamebird hybrids are the result of crossing species of game birds, including ducks, with each other and with domestic poultry. These hybrid species may sometimes occur naturally in the wild or more commonly through the deliberate or inadvertent intervention of humans.
Feral chickens are derived from domestic chickens who have returned to the wild. Like the red junglefowl, feral chickens will roost in bushes in order to avoid predators at night.
South and West Asia consists of a wide region extending from the present-day country of Turkey in the west to Bangladesh and India in the east.
Hen feathering in cocks is the occurrence of a genetically conditioned character in domestic fowl. Males with this condition develop a female-type plumage, although otherwise look and respond as virile males.
Solid black plumage color refers to a plumage pattern in chickens characterized by a uniform, black color across all feathers. There are chicken breeds where the typical plumage color is black, such as Australorp, Sumatra, White-Faced Black Spanish, Jersey Giant and others. And there are many other breeds having different color varieties, which also have an extended black variety, such as Leghorn, Minorca, Wyandotte, Orpington, Langshan and others.
In poultry standards, solid white is coloration of plumage in chickens characterized by a uniform pure white color across all feathers, which is not generally associated with depigmentation in any other part of the body.
According to some scientists, truly wild populations of the red junglefowl Gallus gallus are either extinct or in grave danger of extinction due to introgression of genes from domestic or feral chickens