December 10, 2024 • 40 mins
If you’ve ever wanted to know why peacocks have such amazing feathers, why they’re not all called peacocks, and plenty of other neat stuff about peacocks, then perhaps this episode on peacocks is for you.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck.
Jerry's here too, And I can't think of anything hilarious
to say, so I'm just going to say this is
stuff you should know.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
That's right. A live show listener request edition because peacocks
came to us. Did you get her name? Or can
we just say the wonderful young girl at our Atlanta
live show?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I really want to say Sarah, but I'm not sure. So,
whoever you are, young girl who suggested peacocks at the
Atlanta show, right in to tell us your name so
we can tell everybody.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, so this is a great idea. We're talking about peacocks,
which is, if you want to look at the word itself,
it's English and it is derived from the Latin word pavo,
and in Old English that was pronounced pah wah pawa,
and that was shortened over the years to poe eventually pocock,
(01:11):
then palcock, and I guess peacock. And it's linked a
little bit to this old expression proud as a poe,
which is, you know how a peacock kind of struts
around all prideful, and then eventually it became peacock.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, and you would think it would have become peacock
like in the nineteen fifties or sixties, but no, it
became peacock as far back as the thirteen hundreds. Yeah,
so that's it for etymology of peacock. But there's a
little more about the word peacock, because a lot of
you are getting things wrong and you need to be corrected, Yeah, harshly.
Sometimes a peacock is specifically the male of the species. Obviously,
(01:52):
the p hen is the female. So if you see
a brown, kind of drab looking peacock, he's you look
at that brown peacock, Well, you just sound like a
hay seed. Yeah, it's a p hen and she's not drabbed,
she's camouflaged.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
That's right. Their little babies cairlled pea chicks. And if
you want to talk as we're going to about the
the species as a whole, we're going to be saying
p fowl. And then we will you know, when we
say cock, we're going to mean male. When we say hn,
we're going to mean lady. And when we say chick
we're going to mean beebe Okay, I think.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
We've really laid it out.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
There are three main species, speaking of laying this out
of the pa fowl. Uh and you have the most
common that you if you live in the United States
and you've seen one, maybe in a zoo, maybe in
a park, or maybe startting around your neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, we have some walking around our area too.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Oh yeah, is it? I mean the same ones from
many years ago, because you told the story years ago
about the sound of the peacock.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Sorry, no, those were those were Yumi's grandma's peacock. Neighborhood peacocks.
Oh okay, And for some reason, the ones that live
around me are not a disturbance at all. I mean
they make their sounds, but few and it's few and
far between. It's not annoying at all. It's kind of
(03:17):
cute and it's just a different experience than it was
around Jumi's grandma's house.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
All right, fair enough. I mean I've talked before about
my neighborhood peacocks. I have not seen them in a
few years, so I don't know if they're still around.
And the house is on my morning dog walk, so
I haven't seen those peacocks around in a little while
those p fowl, So I'm not sure if they're around,
but we used to see them occasionally and it was
all great fun. But where I started ten minutes ago
(03:46):
saying is if you see one of those in the
United States, you're probably almost certainly looking at a blue
pfowl or an Indian p fowl.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, for sure. They are not native to the United States,
although they thrive and coastal wormish areas, kind of muggy areas,
you could say, too, although also arid areas anyway, California
and Florida. Let's just specify that they do really well there.
But they're native to India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yes, exactly. They're the most common, little less common, but
still more common than The third group is the green
p fowl or the Javanese p fowl, so native to Java,
Southeast Asia and me and mar And then what's our
little third grouping.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
The Congo p fowl. That's right, little it's like a
little mini turkey. He looks like they look like they're
native to the Congo basin in Africa, and the Indian
and Javanese p fowl prefer kind of open ish fields.
And maybe kind of tree lined streets. That's why they
(04:56):
love neighborhoods parks like it replicates their native of habitat.
The congo pea fowl prefer to live in the forest itself. Yeah,
that's right, So that's that's where they like to live.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
No matter which kind of pea fowl you're talking about,
they're all going to be omnivores. They eat lots of
seeds and berries and you know, plant life and stuff
like that, as well as some insects. But they'll also
much down on a mouse or a little cute lizard
or a snake if they want to. If they're feeling peckish,
(05:28):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Get a peckish. So they are among the largest flying
birds in the world. At Something a lot of people
don't realize about p fowl is that they can fly. Apparently,
the green pea fowl fowl, yeah I said that right, Yeah,
is a pretty strong flyer. The Indian or blue pea
(05:50):
fowl is not great. But they can make it to
the roof of a two story building. Yeah, pretty fast.
If a dog like Mamo barks at them, I can
tell you that.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, I've seen that too.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
So they can fly and they are very large too.
Blue pea fowl the most common one. They're the biggest
of the three. The adult male can measure fifty inches.
It's a little over four feet. God knows how many
meters we're talking about, let's say one point two. And
it's train, so that what you think of as the
(06:24):
tail feathers are actually not the tail. They actually protrude
out of the back of the pea fowl or the
peacock in this case. That can be five to seven
feet long. So they are a big, big bird, not
big bird size, but there's.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Still a big that's right. And as you'll see, that
big beautiful train is a big part of the mating ritual.
So when you see that thing fully displayed, when that
peacock wants to have a little good time with a
p hen, that thing may go five to seven feet
in every direction.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
It's amazing, very very long.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Arch.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
They also use it to defend their territory. I saw
a guy laying pavers once, and he was apparently laying
pavers on a peacock's territory because the peacock had his
train like fully fanned out. Oh really, it was like
shaking and staring at the guy like, I'm going to
kill you if you don't stop laying pavers right there.
Oh wow, the guy just completely ignored him. It was
pretty funny to see because that peacock was quite serious.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I bet so. The blue adult male peacock is about
a thirteen pounder if you don't count wild turkeys, which
are usually put into a different family, although they can
be in the pheasant family. They are the largest. The
peacock that is is the largest in the pheasant family.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
You're not going to take a shot at the family
name for the turkeys. No, I wouldn't gun on it,
but you can, uh, Millia Gridi Day. Yeah, great, I
think I got it. I didn't even practice that one.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Good job.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
But those turkeys, did you say they can weigh up
to thirty pounds?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I didn't say that about the turkeys, but yeah, they're big.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
That's a big turkey. It's like the baby hweie types.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah. I got that turkey family living in living at
my camp. There's six or eight of them now, they're
just they hang around together. I get them on the
camp camp. It's just lovely.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Well, are they used to your presence or because those
things run? They have really sharp eyesight, and they scatter quick.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
No, no, I mean sadly. All the wonderful camp activity
is when I'm not there. Well, I have a feeling
that they peer through the woods and they're like other
guys are down there again?
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Right to leave tomorrow, spending a weekend like standing up
against the tree and not moving seeing what happens.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
No, I'll do that, though you should.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Buy yourself some nice camouflage clothing first, though it'll help
a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I've already got that stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Okay. So I also said that the blue pea hens
are sometimes considered drab, and I mean compared to the males.
They are not quite as easy on the eyes, right,
But they're brown in their drab because the female blue
pea hens are responsible for guarding their nests, and even
(09:08):
though they spend a lot of time roosting in trees,
very often they sleep over night in trees. They build
their nests on the ground and little depressions on the
ground lined with sticks, and so they have to defend
that nest at all times. The easiest way to defend
it is to not be seen, so they steer clear
of being seen by things like leopards and tigers and
(09:29):
mongoose and all that by blending in with the surrounding.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Terrain and momos.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, Momo doesn't actually want to predate the peacock. She
just wants it to know, like, this is Momo's yard. Yeah, peacock,
let them know who's boss, right, exactly, Momo's boss.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
So the green pea fowl, you know, we're going to
talk about a little bit about all of them, even
though the blue are the most common, but the green,
if it's not mating season, you may not be able
to tell them apart. They both have that really nice
green neck, that sort of light green here and there,
And during mating season is when you're going to see
(10:07):
the male's train grow a lot longer. But then they
molten they shed those so more or less they look
about the same when it's not mating season.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, and they're both very, very beautiful. They have amazingly
beautiful feathers as well. The little congo pea fowl, they're
kind of cute, dark blue neck feathers and dark green
and black train. Females are also brown, but they they're
just not Nothing can beat a blue peacock, Yeah, they
just can't. I'm sorry. That's a hill I'll die on
(10:37):
if I have to.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah, it's fantastic. And if you have one in your
neighborhood and as a pet in captivity, if one of
your neighbors does, you may just get used to that
sound and get used to seeing them because they could
live forty to fifty years when kept his pets. Not
suggesting that they be kept his pets. I'm just saying
that people do that. They live about ten to twenty
five years in the wild.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah. They can also kind of haul pretty. They can
run up to ten miles an hour when they need to.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Okay, you got to get a good running start if
you want to get off the ground.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I guess with their little like aviator goggles.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Uh you want to take a break, Yeah all right,
well we're going.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
To do that.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Everybody watch this.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Stop.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
So I think it's high time that we talk about
what everybody thinks of when they think of peacocks, which
is that amazing train of feathers spread out in a
fan behind him, and it's correct to see him and
this is all part of the mating ritual, right, that's
the whole point of the those feathers. Again, the peacocks
(12:01):
will use it to try to or off or intimidate
trespassers in their territory, but for the most part, the
whole thing is to impress the pea hens.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
That's right. And when a male wants to impress a
p hen, that peacock will prop up those feathers into
a big, beautiful fan. Dave likens it. Dave helped us
with this to like an inverted umbrella, So it's sort
of you know, when you see this sort of pointed
back from their butthole area towards and they will shake
(12:33):
those feathers, and the shaking isn't just like, hey, look
how pretty and iridescent this gorgeous train is. Science has
discovered semi recently that those vibrations are in lockstep with
the p fowl's head feathers that they used to think
were just for show, but now they realize they are.
(12:55):
They vibrate at the same intensity, and that they can actually,
you know, sort of feel when those tail feathers are
vibrating in their direction through their head feathers.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, they're like receivers.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Isn't that neat super cool?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
They resonate at at the same rate the male peacock
when he shakes those those feathers that fan, he can
shake it at more than twenty five times a second,
and that resonance I think it's like twenty five point
six hurts to be exact. That just happens to be
tuned in almost precisely to the cress feathers on the
(13:27):
pea fowl's head. And in addition to the site, apparently
p hens have amazing sight, so they're seeing everything that
the peacock's showing them, but also they're they're feeling it
like they're there. That's transmitting that vibration or resonance is
transmitting to their head. So it's quite a like you're
not going to turn down a peacock if you're a
p hen. They're pretty amazing dudes.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
That's right. And before we get emails, I'm sure Josh
will admit that when you said it just happens to
vibrate the same frequency, that is no accident at all.
It's called natural selection. Baby.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Oh yeah, sure, you're.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Cheeky, But I'm sure somebody would write in and say, no, Josh,
it didn't just happen to vibrate that way. It's by design.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Intelligent design people.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
You mean no, no creationists, no by design as natural selection.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
It's very teleological.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I don't even know what that means. What's that mean?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
It means that that everything has a purpose. So it
was like design to be a certain way.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I love that. See, people, when you don't know a word,
it's okay to say I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
It sure is, Chuck, that's a great example. This set.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So and you didn't talk down to me. You told
me the definition. Now I'm a little bit smarter because
of you.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Yeah, I wasn't like a dummy. Listen up.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Teleological, all right, So we need to cover this part
of the mating ritual because the fact of the matter
is the peacock loves to get around the block, if
you know what I mean. They have a social structure
called a lech l e k, which is basically a harem,
and the male is gonna mate with several females. But
(15:12):
here's the part that's a little maybe not intuitive. Even
though the male is mating with many females, the male
isn't running the show as far as who he gets
to do that with.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, so he's putting on this huge show not to
be like, I'm hypnotizing you, baby, do my bidding. He's
doing it because he's like, check me out, don't you
like me? Like look at this isn't aren't I amazing?
And the female can either be like I've seen better
or she could be like, yeah, you're right up my alley.
You just happen to be vibrating at my residence, right.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
That's telelogical.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
So yeah. So one of the ways that a male
will make himself seem even more virile than he is,
there's something called the hoot dash noise, and just the
hoot is the noise part. It's called a hoot dash
because right after the male hoots, he dashes toward the
female and they start mating. Right, it's actually quite disturbing
(16:09):
to see a lot of mating in the animal world
is really disturbing.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
This saw video too, It's like the dash was very
close to the hoot.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Yeah, but that's what the noise is called. So the
males realize that like the more hoot dashing or hoot
sounds that they make the more females in earshot but
not in eyeshot. I guess well here, oh wow, Like
Terry really gets it on with a lot of p hens.
(16:38):
I'm going to give him a shot next time he
comes around, because he must be very virile. Like a
third of those hoot dash sounds are faked essentially, that's right.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
So when that finally happens, the female p hen will
scratch out a little depression in the ground basically and
line it with sticks, and that's their little They're going
to layford to eggs that are gonna hatch after four weeks,
and those little pea chicks are up and around pretty
much right out of the gate. It'll take them a
(17:08):
couple of weeks to fly. And those boys that are
peacocks aren't gonna get those train feathers until their second year.
They're like, why don't you just chill for a couple
of years and not think about that thing?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, they are so cute too. Do not rely on
the internet for what a baby peacock looks like? Apparently
it's been a great example to demonstrate how much AI
is just screwing the internet.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Oh really, yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah. If you go on Google image search for baby peacocks,
like people think that there's pictures of like a giant
or like a miniatureized cute, big eyed peacock, and that
that's a baby peacock. They all look like p hens,
like little brown p hens. But even if they're peacocks,
that's how they start out. So just check it out.
Just search the baby peacock for images, and it's a lie.
(18:00):
It's a lie for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
That's the cutest little iridescent blue baby duckling thing I've
ever seen.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Right, but it doesn't exist. That's not real. Hey, don't
blame me, blame the AI running the internet.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, those eyes are suspiciously large and disney like.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
So. One other thing about the pea chicks is that
they stay with their mom for two to six months,
depending on whether they're in captivity in the wild. Moms
are much more maternal instinct wise in the wild than
they are in captivity, so you know, depends on the
situation how long they hang around them. But just watching,
(18:43):
have you ever seen a p hen with their little
pea chicks following her?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Uh no, I've just seen the turkey version at the camp.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
It's very cute. Oh my god, I'll bet baby turkeys
are pretty cute too.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, the following around is just very cute because like
mom's up front and there's like six little guys and
girls just following it along like I can keep up,
I can keep up.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
And there's always one straggler that has to like run
faster when the group.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah, Barney, love that guy who Barney.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
That's a perfect name.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
So the dads, as far as blue and green peacocks go,
are not around. There are complete absentee dads. But hey,
if you're feeling bad for the family unit, just go
to the congo because those congo p fowl are monogamous.
They don't have those leks. They like one lady and
they hang around and feed and raise pea chicks with mommy.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Yeah pretty great.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Huh, yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
So I think we should talk a little bit about
natural selection, sexual selection Charles Darwin, kind of what you
were alluding to earlier.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Right, Yeah, because Charles Darwin was bringing a little too
much of his human baggage to some of this research.
It seems pretty clear, don't.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
You think, Uh huh for sure?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And how was he doing that?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
So Darwin grew up or lived in the Victorian era
where women were viewed as passive, submissive. They were just
there and had their fingers crossed that a man of
adequate dashingness would come along and marry them, right, So
that meant that it was the men, the males of
the Victorian era human species in England at least, that
(20:25):
were responsible for sexual selection. They chose the winners and
the losers among women. Well, Darwin was looking around the
world of nature basically all the other animals, and was like,
that's not really what I'm seeing out there. And in
the peacocks in particular, the females are again drab, really camouflaged,
(20:46):
while the males have these amazing beautiful displays. That strongly
suggests that the males are performing for the females and
it's the females who are doing the sexual selecting. Yeah,
and he had such a hard time wrestling with this.
There's a quote from him that said the sight of
a pea feather made him sick, right because he could
not give in. And he finally was you know, science
(21:09):
got the better of him. And he's like, that's just
how it is. I don't like it. But females in
the animal kingdom are typically the ones who select sexually
and end up are the They're the drivers of natural selection.
They choose what passes on to the next generation based
on the kind of male mates that they choose.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
That's right, And that choosing is based on that flashy
display that we're going to talk a little bit more
about as far as the colors and stuff go, and
that vibration. But if they're science behind that, or is
there science behind that? Yes, In nineteen ninety four it
seems like it, at least there were some researchers in
Britain that found that the bigger peacocks that had more
(21:50):
eye spots, you know, they look like eyes. What are
they called.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Asily ocelli In the Italian it'd be celli because ce
followed by a vowel is a just sound. So let's
just go with Italian, say, oh chelly.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Okay. But the more of those they have, and the
larger that they are, and the more just big and
beautiful they are, it looks like the larger offspring they're
going to have that are going to be more likely
to survive. So it seems like they are more genetically fit.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, and those eye spots play a real starring role
in this whole sexual selection mating process. Right. So the
feathers in and of themselves are pretty amazing, but the
eye spots, these little dots with different colors on them
that are across like a like, scattered all across the
train feathers the fan. They are of a slightly different
(22:40):
structure slightly different density than the rest of the feathers
surrounding them. So when that train resonates at twenty five
point six hurts, they appear to stand still and float
against the background of the other feathers that are vibrating
at the same frequency, but are just of a slightly
different density. And this is so important. These o'celly. The
(23:03):
eye spots are so important. The scientists have figured out
that other species that also have eye spots aren't. They
don't share a common ancestor with peacocks that had eye spots. Chuck.
Eye spots evolved separately over different times among different species.
(23:24):
They're that important for mating.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
That's right, And thanks to our listener Mail in the
Ruby Ridge episode, it's called conversion evolution and not co evolution.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Very nice. I say we take a break then, since
we're done talking about eye spots, right.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, we'll finish up with that three right after this.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Oh wait, wait, there was one more thing about eye spots.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Wait stop, the presses Jerry roll tape.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Researchers have figured out for sure the eye spots play
a big role, because some poor schmoe of a peacock
had his eye spots covered up and they said, go
out to ladies night and see what happens, and he
got nothing from nobody. Ever will his eye spots were
covered up.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah, the copulation The quote is their copulation success declined
to almost zero.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Almost. They were just being nice.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
They were all right, now are we breaking Yes.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I don't have any other breaking news.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
All right, everybody tick five, then we're back stop. All right,
(24:50):
we are back to finish up with peacocks, and we're
going to talk a little bit about something we did
an entire episode on, and that is iridescent h This
was a this was many years ago that we didn't
up on iridescence. And there's if you want to really
deep dive on the science of it, you can go
listen to that ep. But what we're looking at in
(25:11):
the case of peacock feathers and why they look aridescent
and are just so shiny and majestic looking is because
of the shape. It's a physical shape of something and
not necessarily a color of something, right.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yeah, the pigments that are in the peacock's tail feathers
are melanin, and melanin typically looks brown to us. It's
what gives human skin kind of brown cast to it.
That is melanin pigment. And it's no different than a
peacock's feathers, but the structure is totally different. Like you said,
(25:47):
there's a crystalline structure of overlaying barbs that if you
look on an electron microscope you can see quite clearly.
And those barbs, those crystal barbs of melanin, there's like
little gaps between them, and in fact, it creates what's
called a partial band gap, which means that electromagnetic waves
do not penetrate some area depending on where that light
(26:11):
is hitting. To put simply chuck. Depending on which angle,
which direction, light hits these melanin rods, the crystalline melanin rods,
it's going to reflect or absorb all different kinds of light.
And so the same structure can reflect or absorb different
(26:31):
kinds of light depending on where the light hits it,
which means if you're looking at it one way and
you move slightly left, you're looking at a different part
of that structure, and it's reflecting different colored light, and
that's how iridescence comes along.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
That's right, partial band gap, not to be confused with
the partial gap band, which is the sad tour. When
two out of three of those guys went out on
the road.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
It wasn't a very good tour, was it.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
It wasn't a very good joke. What I couldn't help
my Yeah, I mean that's eridesnence in a nutshell. That's
basically how it works in across nature. It's just about
you know, the structure of the thing, and like, you know,
what do we talk about? You talked about fish and
butterfly wings mainly. I think on that episode.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
It's so neat And yeah, it's just the structure. If
you take a bunch of crystals and pile them on
top of each other and little weird repeating patterns, they're
going to become iridescent. It's gorgeous. Apparently Isaac Newton figured
it out all the way back in seventeen oh four. Yeah,
based on aggressive Yeah, based on peacock feathers. He said,
check these out, man, I know what's going on. You'll
(27:42):
just have to find out that's right.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
We do need to talk about their yelp because it's
a you know, I mean, you used to do a
pretty good impression. You want to try it?
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Help?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Hell, it always sounds like help.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
That's what it sounds like to me. It's uncanny and unnerving.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah, it is. And I always laughed at that years
ago until like we got our own neighborhood peacocks, and
then I would hear it occasionally and I was like, yeah,
Josh's right, or is Josh in that backyard right now?
Like it's one of those two things is happening. Yeah,
it's pretty shrill. It can get annoying if you live
near one. I don't mind it so much because I
didn't live a next door to one, but it's usually
(28:24):
in the morning and evening during mating season. It can
pick up a bit. So I don't know if there
were complaints or if these local peacocks just you know,
met their natural end. You know. I don't know if
they were taken out, or if they were moved to
a farm, you know what I'm saying, yeah, or if
they just had little peace strokes that's bad.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
They were elf struck. So they also they honked too, Like,
I can't even do the honk and the goose that's
that hoot dash thing sounds kind of like, oh yeah
it does.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
I'm a little hankish.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Yeah, so they can do that a lot too, And
if you put it all together, yeah, it can be
very annoying. But I chuck, I cannot figure out what
the difference is between Umi's grandma's neighborhood my neighborhood, because
I have a completely different opinion of the annoyance level
of peacocks. Now I don't understand why, but there's the facts.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Well, maybe you aged into it, I guess.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
So I'm older wives or gentler. Yeah, we're peacock loving.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Sure, I think we all get that way. Sure, all right,
So let's talk about the history of these things. Jumping
back a little bit a few thousand years ago. The
ancient Phoenicians were the first folks to say, hey, these
things are great, Let's move them around to different places,
because these things strutting around a palace is really something
to see. So they brought them from India to Syria.
(29:56):
They were traded around the Mediterranean at that point, and
they did become like a status symbol if you were
nobility or royalty, or had a lot of money or
lived in a palace, then you probably wanted to some
peacock strolling around your property.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, you might also want to eat them. Bow, I
forgot to send you this thing that I found. The
Romans ate them, but they specifically liked their tongues. Peacock
tongue was a delicacy in ancient Roman times in the
Middle Ages.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Wait, where are you going to send me?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
This is what I'm about to tell you.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Oh okay, I thought You're gonna send me a peacock
tongu in the male Flashow.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Why is this so? In the Middle Ages in Europe,
they would actually eat peacock like the whole thing, but
they figured out a way to remove the skin so
that the feathers all came off too. Then they would
roast the bird, and then they would redress it with
its feathers to be served at to the lord of
(30:56):
the manor by the most beautiful girl at the party.
I guess, yeah, And then it would just sit there
for a little while. They would carve into it, eat
it and have a lot of trouble digesting it because
apparently it's really tough. So much so that doctors of
the time were like, don't eat peacock. It's really just
not good for you.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
So they would just stick the feathers back in it
in an ornamental way.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
The picture I saw, the painting I saw made it
look like they did a pretty good job of it. Yeah, yeah,
making it look like it was alive again.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah. Interesting. I think even a lot of meat eaters
appreciate the animal not looking like its original form when
it's on the plate.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Sure right, you don't really want to recognize it?
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah? Like it? You know, I love a brainzeno, but
I don't like that fish head looking up at me.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Oh no, no, you don't like roly poly fish heads?
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Uh no, I don't want to see it. But I'll
still dine on a braanzeno. I got a friend whose
brother will take that eyeball out and eat it right
at the table in front of everybody.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Wrong with that guy.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I mean, supposedly that's the thing to do, you know,
use all the animal. But I just I don't want
to eat an eyeball.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
No to ever tell you. By the time we went
to H and F and like we we just went
too far. No, so for everybody who doesn't know. H
and F is a restaurant in Atlanta, and they're well
known for like using all parts of the animal. Yeah,
and we went and we were like, if you go
further down the menu like gets more and more hardcore.
(32:28):
We just kind of tried it one time and we
got as far as fried chicken heads or beaks, which
had a lot of the head attached still in goodness,
like the whole table just kind of it just took
a dark turn and everybody stopped talking and it was
a bad jam. So I don't recommend the fried chicken
beaks at Homan and Finch anymore.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
That sounds too much like a mcnoggan. You remember that, No,
I think I sent it to you years ago. It
was supposedly in the thing a chicken nuggets, but it
was a a deep fried little chicken head that got
through and they called it the mcnoggan.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
That is what HNF sells as a as a dish.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
All right. It's been very instructive, for sure.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I know, our poor, our poor live show fan Sarah
is like, I know, sorry, I.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Asked for it, Yeah, I said, butthole earlier too. This
is going downhill, all right, so back to history in
peacocks Lord Krishna in the Hindu tradition, where's peacock feathers
is a head dress, and there have been many other
examples over the years in Greek mythology and Roman mythology
about the peacock. I believe Harrah even had peacocks pulling
(33:42):
her chariot.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
At ten miles an hour.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
She she was protected by a giant named Argus who
had one hundred eyes, and he was killed by Hermes,
and so she brought him back as the peacock. That's
a great story. Yeah, there's also the cock throne, right.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, the peacock throne is one of the most expensive
things that's ever been made. If it drives at home,
I think it was about twice the cost of the
taj Maha to build this one throne, which had oh,
twenty five hundred pounds of gold, five hundred pounds, not
(34:22):
five hundred precious stones, five hundred pounds of precious stones.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Including the Corey Newer diamond, which is one hundred and
five carrot diamond. Pretty amazing stuff. They managed. The Mughal
Empire in India managed to hang on to the throne
for about one hundred years until they were invaded by
the Persians, I believe, who were like, we're taking this throne.
This is essentially the reason we invaded was to get
(34:48):
this throne, and they disassembled it and basically sold it
off for parts. Right. Yeah, but if you go onto
the Internet and you search peacock throne, you will see
photographs of a peacock throne that looks pretty amazing, and
you will say, well, how could this have been destroyed
back in the seventeenth or eighteenth century? And the reason
(35:08):
why is because what you're looking at is the replica
that King Ludwig the Second of Bavaria, our friend, the
fairy tale King, had constructed for his castle. Nushwe look
at that, Nushefinstein. Yeah, which one?
Speaker 1 (35:27):
I don't know. I'm just amazed that you brought that around.
Nice work, thanks, any Uschefinstein sounds great.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Nuschwinstein. Yeah, any chance I have to bring King Ludwig
the Second into the story, I'm going to take it.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Well, you had that shirt made.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
That helps ask me about King Ludvig the Second.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Endangered? Yes or no? Indian bluefowl are not endangered. In fact,
they're doing really, really well, and you mentioned you know,
in places in Florida and even southern California, they can
get a little out of hand with their men. They
can tear up foliage, and they can poop all over
the place, and they can destroy habitats that other birds have.
(36:07):
So people sometimes now even are trapping them and giving
them vasectomies.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, there's a town called pine Crest, a suburb of Miami,
which is giving peacock's vasectomy. So if you couldn't have guessed,
pine Crest is a rather well healed suburb of Miami
because a lot of towns can't afford to give peacocks vasectivey.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
That green pea fowl, they are under threat though they're
listed is endangered because they are from Southeast Asia and
a lot of their natural habitat has been done away
with thanks to land development and agricultural mowing down of
their environment and also farmers who will poison them if
they come into their fields.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Yeah, there's only I think ten twenty thousand left of
them in the wild. Hopefully someone steps up, because losing
any animal to extinction sucks, but losing particularly beautiful ones
that their very presence makes the world a better place
to live in those are You don't want to lose those.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
That's right. And as for the congo p fowl, we
don't want to forget about those spellas they are vulnerable,
also habitat loss and hunting, and they're about ten thousand
of those in the wild.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Man alive.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
I know.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Let's see. I'm trying to think if there's anything else.
I don't really think we have anything else, do we?
Speaker 1 (37:29):
I got nothing else?
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Oh? A group of pea fowl? You know? Yeah? What
is it? Collective nouns? Isn't that what they're called?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Uh? Yeah, that was another name form something of something.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yes, I remember what you talking about. I don't remember
what it was too, but yeah, in this case, peacocks,
A group of peacocks are called a pride, an ostentation,
or a party, a peacock party. I like that. I
do too, I like all three of them. Well, since
Chuck and I agreed that we like the collective nouns
(38:03):
for peacocks, then obviously we have just unlocked listener mail.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
I'm going to call this Maine and Billboards. Hey, guys,
longtime super fan of spreading the stuff. You should know
kool aid oh far and wide flavor eight. I think
they make any miles our drive to reach anywhere in
Maine flyby, So thanks for that. When you ask someone
in Maine how far away a destination is, be prepared
to often hear about an hour, but that can mean
(38:31):
forty five minutes to nearly two hours. Fun fact here
though about Maine. During a recent episode on Kadzu, you
were talking about how it takes over billboards, and I
know you get a lot of listener mail for Maine.
I thought you might like to know an exciting factoid.
Have you ever been to Maine and marveled at it's
natural beauty? Well, part of that is due to something
that's missing billboards. Guys. Maine law does not allowed billboards
(38:54):
of any kind. They have a very prescriptive law regarding
signs not on business property AKA and main vernacular official
business directional signs. The rules are very strict and include
a special provision that rolling signs like ones attached to
vehicles cannot even be used to get around these requirements.
And I think it is a thirty dollars license fee
(39:19):
to get a sign that can be forty eight inches
by twelve inches or seventy two inches by sixteen inches,
and you can only use two fonts. They must be
white with a single color background. And this is literally
just to say, like my pressure washing business is down
there or whatever. They say that people may consider billboards
(39:41):
to be detrimental to the preservation of scenic resources. And
that is a great law. And that's one reason we
love Maine. And that is from who is that from?
That's from Katrina Peterson.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Thanks Katrina. That is a very sensible, awesome law. I
love that. It's one of the worst things to see
when you're driving down the highways, to billboards. It is terrible.
Great thanks for letting us know that. Hopefully as Main goes,
the rest of the world follows. And if you want
to be like Katrina and get in touch with this
and let us know of a very sensible local law.
(40:13):
We love that kind of thing. You can send us
an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 2 (40:26):
The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck.
Jerry's here too, And I can't think of anything hilarious
to say, so I'm just going to say this is
stuff you should know.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
That's right. A live show listener request edition because peacocks
came to us. Did you get her name? Or can
we just say the wonderful young girl at our Atlanta
live show?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I really want to say Sarah, but I'm not sure. So,
whoever you are, young girl who suggested peacocks at the
Atlanta show, right in to tell us your name so
we can tell everybody.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, so this is a great idea. We're talking about peacocks,
which is, if you want to look at the word itself,
it's English and it is derived from the Latin word pavo,
and in Old English that was pronounced pah wah pawa,
and that was shortened over the years to poe eventually pocock,
(01:11):
then palcock, and I guess peacock. And it's linked a
little bit to this old expression proud as a poe,
which is, you know how a peacock kind of struts
around all prideful, and then eventually it became peacock.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, and you would think it would have become peacock
like in the nineteen fifties or sixties, but no, it
became peacock as far back as the thirteen hundreds. Yeah,
so that's it for etymology of peacock. But there's a
little more about the word peacock, because a lot of
you are getting things wrong and you need to be corrected, Yeah, harshly.
Sometimes a peacock is specifically the male of the species. Obviously,
(01:52):
the p hen is the female. So if you see
a brown, kind of drab looking peacock, he's you look
at that brown peacock, Well, you just sound like a
hay seed. Yeah, it's a p hen and she's not drabbed,
she's camouflaged.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
That's right. Their little babies cairlled pea chicks. And if
you want to talk as we're going to about the
the species as a whole, we're going to be saying
p fowl. And then we will you know, when we
say cock, we're going to mean male. When we say hn,
we're going to mean lady. And when we say chick
we're going to mean beebe Okay, I think.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
We've really laid it out.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
There are three main species, speaking of laying this out
of the pa fowl. Uh and you have the most
common that you if you live in the United States
and you've seen one, maybe in a zoo, maybe in
a park, or maybe startting around your neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, we have some walking around our area too.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Oh yeah, is it? I mean the same ones from
many years ago, because you told the story years ago
about the sound of the peacock.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Sorry, no, those were those were Yumi's grandma's peacock. Neighborhood peacocks.
Oh okay, And for some reason, the ones that live
around me are not a disturbance at all. I mean
they make their sounds, but few and it's few and
far between. It's not annoying at all. It's kind of
(03:17):
cute and it's just a different experience than it was
around Jumi's grandma's house.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
All right, fair enough. I mean I've talked before about
my neighborhood peacocks. I have not seen them in a
few years, so I don't know if they're still around.
And the house is on my morning dog walk, so
I haven't seen those peacocks around in a little while
those p fowl, So I'm not sure if they're around,
but we used to see them occasionally and it was
all great fun. But where I started ten minutes ago
(03:46):
saying is if you see one of those in the
United States, you're probably almost certainly looking at a blue
pfowl or an Indian p fowl.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, for sure. They are not native to the United States,
although they thrive and coastal wormish areas, kind of muggy areas,
you could say, too, although also arid areas anyway, California
and Florida. Let's just specify that they do really well there.
But they're native to India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yes, exactly. They're the most common, little less common, but
still more common than The third group is the green
p fowl or the Javanese p fowl, so native to Java,
Southeast Asia and me and mar And then what's our
little third grouping.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
The Congo p fowl. That's right, little it's like a
little mini turkey. He looks like they look like they're
native to the Congo basin in Africa, and the Indian
and Javanese p fowl prefer kind of open ish fields.
And maybe kind of tree lined streets. That's why they
(04:56):
love neighborhoods parks like it replicates their native of habitat.
The congo pea fowl prefer to live in the forest itself. Yeah,
that's right, So that's that's where they like to live.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
No matter which kind of pea fowl you're talking about,
they're all going to be omnivores. They eat lots of
seeds and berries and you know, plant life and stuff
like that, as well as some insects. But they'll also
much down on a mouse or a little cute lizard
or a snake if they want to. If they're feeling peckish,
(05:28):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Get a peckish. So they are among the largest flying
birds in the world. At Something a lot of people
don't realize about p fowl is that they can fly. Apparently,
the green pea fowl fowl, yeah I said that right, Yeah,
is a pretty strong flyer. The Indian or blue pea
(05:50):
fowl is not great. But they can make it to
the roof of a two story building. Yeah, pretty fast.
If a dog like Mamo barks at them, I can
tell you that.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, I've seen that too.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
So they can fly and they are very large too.
Blue pea fowl the most common one. They're the biggest
of the three. The adult male can measure fifty inches.
It's a little over four feet. God knows how many
meters we're talking about, let's say one point two. And
it's train, so that what you think of as the
(06:24):
tail feathers are actually not the tail. They actually protrude
out of the back of the pea fowl or the
peacock in this case. That can be five to seven
feet long. So they are a big, big bird, not
big bird size, but there's.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Still a big that's right. And as you'll see, that
big beautiful train is a big part of the mating ritual.
So when you see that thing fully displayed, when that
peacock wants to have a little good time with a
p hen, that thing may go five to seven feet
in every direction.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
It's amazing, very very long.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Arch.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
They also use it to defend their territory. I saw
a guy laying pavers once, and he was apparently laying
pavers on a peacock's territory because the peacock had his
train like fully fanned out. Oh really, it was like
shaking and staring at the guy like, I'm going to
kill you if you don't stop laying pavers right there.
Oh wow, the guy just completely ignored him. It was
pretty funny to see because that peacock was quite serious.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I bet so. The blue adult male peacock is about
a thirteen pounder if you don't count wild turkeys, which
are usually put into a different family, although they can
be in the pheasant family. They are the largest. The
peacock that is is the largest in the pheasant family.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
You're not going to take a shot at the family
name for the turkeys. No, I wouldn't gun on it,
but you can, uh, Millia Gridi Day. Yeah, great, I
think I got it. I didn't even practice that one.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Good job.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
But those turkeys, did you say they can weigh up
to thirty pounds?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I didn't say that about the turkeys, but yeah, they're big.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
That's a big turkey. It's like the baby hweie types.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah. I got that turkey family living in living at
my camp. There's six or eight of them now, they're
just they hang around together. I get them on the
camp camp. It's just lovely.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Well, are they used to your presence or because those
things run? They have really sharp eyesight, and they scatter quick.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
No, no, I mean sadly. All the wonderful camp activity
is when I'm not there. Well, I have a feeling
that they peer through the woods and they're like other
guys are down there again?
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Right to leave tomorrow, spending a weekend like standing up
against the tree and not moving seeing what happens.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
No, I'll do that, though you should.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Buy yourself some nice camouflage clothing first, though it'll help
a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I've already got that stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Okay. So I also said that the blue pea hens
are sometimes considered drab, and I mean compared to the males.
They are not quite as easy on the eyes, right,
But they're brown in their drab because the female blue
pea hens are responsible for guarding their nests, and even
(09:08):
though they spend a lot of time roosting in trees,
very often they sleep over night in trees. They build
their nests on the ground and little depressions on the
ground lined with sticks, and so they have to defend
that nest at all times. The easiest way to defend
it is to not be seen, so they steer clear
of being seen by things like leopards and tigers and
(09:29):
mongoose and all that by blending in with the surrounding.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Terrain and momos.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, Momo doesn't actually want to predate the peacock. She
just wants it to know, like, this is Momo's yard. Yeah, peacock,
let them know who's boss, right, exactly, Momo's boss.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
So the green pea fowl, you know, we're going to
talk about a little bit about all of them, even
though the blue are the most common, but the green,
if it's not mating season, you may not be able
to tell them apart. They both have that really nice
green neck, that sort of light green here and there,
And during mating season is when you're going to see
(10:07):
the male's train grow a lot longer. But then they
molten they shed those so more or less they look
about the same when it's not mating season.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, and they're both very, very beautiful. They have amazingly
beautiful feathers as well. The little congo pea fowl, they're
kind of cute, dark blue neck feathers and dark green
and black train. Females are also brown, but they they're
just not Nothing can beat a blue peacock, Yeah, they
just can't. I'm sorry. That's a hill I'll die on
(10:37):
if I have to.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah, it's fantastic. And if you have one in your
neighborhood and as a pet in captivity, if one of
your neighbors does, you may just get used to that
sound and get used to seeing them because they could
live forty to fifty years when kept his pets. Not
suggesting that they be kept his pets. I'm just saying
that people do that. They live about ten to twenty
five years in the wild.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah. They can also kind of haul pretty. They can
run up to ten miles an hour when they need to.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Okay, you got to get a good running start if
you want to get off the ground.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I guess with their little like aviator goggles.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Uh you want to take a break, Yeah all right,
well we're going.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
To do that.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Everybody watch this.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Stop.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
So I think it's high time that we talk about
what everybody thinks of when they think of peacocks, which
is that amazing train of feathers spread out in a
fan behind him, and it's correct to see him and
this is all part of the mating ritual, right, that's
the whole point of the those feathers. Again, the peacocks
(12:01):
will use it to try to or off or intimidate
trespassers in their territory, but for the most part, the
whole thing is to impress the pea hens.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
That's right. And when a male wants to impress a
p hen, that peacock will prop up those feathers into
a big, beautiful fan. Dave likens it. Dave helped us
with this to like an inverted umbrella, So it's sort
of you know, when you see this sort of pointed
back from their butthole area towards and they will shake
(12:33):
those feathers, and the shaking isn't just like, hey, look
how pretty and iridescent this gorgeous train is. Science has
discovered semi recently that those vibrations are in lockstep with
the p fowl's head feathers that they used to think
were just for show, but now they realize they are.
(12:55):
They vibrate at the same intensity, and that they can actually,
you know, sort of feel when those tail feathers are
vibrating in their direction through their head feathers.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, they're like receivers.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Isn't that neat super cool?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
They resonate at at the same rate the male peacock
when he shakes those those feathers that fan, he can
shake it at more than twenty five times a second,
and that resonance I think it's like twenty five point
six hurts to be exact. That just happens to be
tuned in almost precisely to the cress feathers on the
(13:27):
pea fowl's head. And in addition to the site, apparently
p hens have amazing sight, so they're seeing everything that
the peacock's showing them, but also they're they're feeling it
like they're there. That's transmitting that vibration or resonance is
transmitting to their head. So it's quite a like you're
not going to turn down a peacock if you're a
p hen. They're pretty amazing dudes.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
That's right. And before we get emails, I'm sure Josh
will admit that when you said it just happens to
vibrate the same frequency, that is no accident at all.
It's called natural selection. Baby.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Oh yeah, sure, you're.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Cheeky, But I'm sure somebody would write in and say, no, Josh,
it didn't just happen to vibrate that way. It's by design.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Intelligent design people.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
You mean no, no creationists, no by design as natural selection.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
It's very teleological.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I don't even know what that means. What's that mean?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
It means that that everything has a purpose. So it
was like design to be a certain way.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I love that. See, people, when you don't know a word,
it's okay to say I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
It sure is, Chuck, that's a great example. This set.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So and you didn't talk down to me. You told
me the definition. Now I'm a little bit smarter because
of you.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Yeah, I wasn't like a dummy. Listen up.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Teleological, all right, So we need to cover this part
of the mating ritual because the fact of the matter
is the peacock loves to get around the block, if
you know what I mean. They have a social structure
called a lech l e k, which is basically a harem,
and the male is gonna mate with several females. But
(15:12):
here's the part that's a little maybe not intuitive. Even
though the male is mating with many females, the male
isn't running the show as far as who he gets
to do that with.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, so he's putting on this huge show not to
be like, I'm hypnotizing you, baby, do my bidding. He's
doing it because he's like, check me out, don't you
like me? Like look at this isn't aren't I amazing?
And the female can either be like I've seen better
or she could be like, yeah, you're right up my alley.
You just happen to be vibrating at my residence, right.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
That's telelogical.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
So yeah. So one of the ways that a male
will make himself seem even more virile than he is,
there's something called the hoot dash noise, and just the
hoot is the noise part. It's called a hoot dash
because right after the male hoots, he dashes toward the
female and they start mating. Right, it's actually quite disturbing
(16:09):
to see a lot of mating in the animal world
is really disturbing.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
This saw video too, It's like the dash was very
close to the hoot.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Yeah, but that's what the noise is called. So the
males realize that like the more hoot dashing or hoot
sounds that they make the more females in earshot but
not in eyeshot. I guess well here, oh wow, Like
Terry really gets it on with a lot of p hens.
(16:38):
I'm going to give him a shot next time he
comes around, because he must be very virile. Like a
third of those hoot dash sounds are faked essentially, that's right.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
So when that finally happens, the female p hen will
scratch out a little depression in the ground basically and
line it with sticks, and that's their little They're going
to layford to eggs that are gonna hatch after four weeks,
and those little pea chicks are up and around pretty
much right out of the gate. It'll take them a
(17:08):
couple of weeks to fly. And those boys that are
peacocks aren't gonna get those train feathers until their second year.
They're like, why don't you just chill for a couple
of years and not think about that thing?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, they are so cute too. Do not rely on
the internet for what a baby peacock looks like? Apparently
it's been a great example to demonstrate how much AI
is just screwing the internet.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Oh really, yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah. If you go on Google image search for baby peacocks,
like people think that there's pictures of like a giant
or like a miniatureized cute, big eyed peacock, and that
that's a baby peacock. They all look like p hens,
like little brown p hens. But even if they're peacocks,
that's how they start out. So just check it out.
Just search the baby peacock for images, and it's a lie.
(18:00):
It's a lie for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
That's the cutest little iridescent blue baby duckling thing I've
ever seen.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Right, but it doesn't exist. That's not real. Hey, don't
blame me, blame the AI running the internet.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, those eyes are suspiciously large and disney like.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
So. One other thing about the pea chicks is that
they stay with their mom for two to six months,
depending on whether they're in captivity in the wild. Moms
are much more maternal instinct wise in the wild than
they are in captivity, so you know, depends on the
situation how long they hang around them. But just watching,
(18:43):
have you ever seen a p hen with their little
pea chicks following her?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Uh no, I've just seen the turkey version at the camp.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
It's very cute. Oh my god, I'll bet baby turkeys
are pretty cute too.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, the following around is just very cute because like
mom's up front and there's like six little guys and
girls just following it along like I can keep up,
I can keep up.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
And there's always one straggler that has to like run
faster when the group.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah, Barney, love that guy who Barney.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
That's a perfect name.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
So the dads, as far as blue and green peacocks go,
are not around. There are complete absentee dads. But hey,
if you're feeling bad for the family unit, just go
to the congo because those congo p fowl are monogamous.
They don't have those leks. They like one lady and
they hang around and feed and raise pea chicks with mommy.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Yeah pretty great.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Huh, yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
So I think we should talk a little bit about
natural selection, sexual selection Charles Darwin, kind of what you
were alluding to earlier.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Right, Yeah, because Charles Darwin was bringing a little too
much of his human baggage to some of this research.
It seems pretty clear, don't.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
You think, Uh huh for sure?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And how was he doing that?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
So Darwin grew up or lived in the Victorian era
where women were viewed as passive, submissive. They were just
there and had their fingers crossed that a man of
adequate dashingness would come along and marry them, right, So
that meant that it was the men, the males of
the Victorian era human species in England at least, that
(20:25):
were responsible for sexual selection. They chose the winners and
the losers among women. Well, Darwin was looking around the
world of nature basically all the other animals, and was like,
that's not really what I'm seeing out there. And in
the peacocks in particular, the females are again drab, really camouflaged,
(20:46):
while the males have these amazing beautiful displays. That strongly
suggests that the males are performing for the females and
it's the females who are doing the sexual selecting. Yeah,
and he had such a hard time wrestling with this.
There's a quote from him that said the sight of
a pea feather made him sick, right because he could
not give in. And he finally was you know, science
(21:09):
got the better of him. And he's like, that's just
how it is. I don't like it. But females in
the animal kingdom are typically the ones who select sexually
and end up are the They're the drivers of natural selection.
They choose what passes on to the next generation based
on the kind of male mates that they choose.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
That's right, And that choosing is based on that flashy
display that we're going to talk a little bit more
about as far as the colors and stuff go, and
that vibration. But if they're science behind that, or is
there science behind that? Yes, In nineteen ninety four it
seems like it, at least there were some researchers in
Britain that found that the bigger peacocks that had more
(21:50):
eye spots, you know, they look like eyes. What are
they called.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Asily ocelli In the Italian it'd be celli because ce
followed by a vowel is a just sound. So let's
just go with Italian, say, oh chelly.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Okay. But the more of those they have, and the
larger that they are, and the more just big and
beautiful they are, it looks like the larger offspring they're
going to have that are going to be more likely
to survive. So it seems like they are more genetically fit.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, and those eye spots play a real starring role
in this whole sexual selection mating process. Right. So the
feathers in and of themselves are pretty amazing, but the
eye spots, these little dots with different colors on them
that are across like a like, scattered all across the
train feathers the fan. They are of a slightly different
(22:40):
structure slightly different density than the rest of the feathers
surrounding them. So when that train resonates at twenty five
point six hurts, they appear to stand still and float
against the background of the other feathers that are vibrating
at the same frequency, but are just of a slightly
different density. And this is so important. These o'celly. The
(23:03):
eye spots are so important. The scientists have figured out
that other species that also have eye spots aren't. They
don't share a common ancestor with peacocks that had eye spots. Chuck.
Eye spots evolved separately over different times among different species.
(23:24):
They're that important for mating.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
That's right, And thanks to our listener Mail in the
Ruby Ridge episode, it's called conversion evolution and not co evolution.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Very nice. I say we take a break then, since
we're done talking about eye spots, right.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, we'll finish up with that three right after this.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Oh wait, wait, there was one more thing about eye spots.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Wait stop, the presses Jerry roll tape.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Researchers have figured out for sure the eye spots play
a big role, because some poor schmoe of a peacock
had his eye spots covered up and they said, go
out to ladies night and see what happens, and he
got nothing from nobody. Ever will his eye spots were
covered up.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah, the copulation The quote is their copulation success declined
to almost zero.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Almost. They were just being nice.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
They were all right, now are we breaking Yes.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I don't have any other breaking news.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
All right, everybody tick five, then we're back stop. All right,
(24:50):
we are back to finish up with peacocks, and we're
going to talk a little bit about something we did
an entire episode on, and that is iridescent h This
was a this was many years ago that we didn't
up on iridescence. And there's if you want to really
deep dive on the science of it, you can go
listen to that ep. But what we're looking at in
(25:11):
the case of peacock feathers and why they look aridescent
and are just so shiny and majestic looking is because
of the shape. It's a physical shape of something and
not necessarily a color of something, right.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yeah, the pigments that are in the peacock's tail feathers
are melanin, and melanin typically looks brown to us. It's
what gives human skin kind of brown cast to it.
That is melanin pigment. And it's no different than a
peacock's feathers, but the structure is totally different. Like you said,
(25:47):
there's a crystalline structure of overlaying barbs that if you
look on an electron microscope you can see quite clearly.
And those barbs, those crystal barbs of melanin, there's like
little gaps between them, and in fact, it creates what's
called a partial band gap, which means that electromagnetic waves
do not penetrate some area depending on where that light
(26:11):
is hitting. To put simply chuck. Depending on which angle,
which direction, light hits these melanin rods, the crystalline melanin rods,
it's going to reflect or absorb all different kinds of light.
And so the same structure can reflect or absorb different
(26:31):
kinds of light depending on where the light hits it,
which means if you're looking at it one way and
you move slightly left, you're looking at a different part
of that structure, and it's reflecting different colored light, and
that's how iridescence comes along.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
That's right, partial band gap, not to be confused with
the partial gap band, which is the sad tour. When
two out of three of those guys went out on
the road.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
It wasn't a very good tour, was it.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
It wasn't a very good joke. What I couldn't help
my Yeah, I mean that's eridesnence in a nutshell. That's
basically how it works in across nature. It's just about
you know, the structure of the thing, and like, you know,
what do we talk about? You talked about fish and
butterfly wings mainly. I think on that episode.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
It's so neat And yeah, it's just the structure. If
you take a bunch of crystals and pile them on
top of each other and little weird repeating patterns, they're
going to become iridescent. It's gorgeous. Apparently Isaac Newton figured
it out all the way back in seventeen oh four. Yeah,
based on aggressive Yeah, based on peacock feathers. He said,
check these out, man, I know what's going on. You'll
(27:42):
just have to find out that's right.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
We do need to talk about their yelp because it's
a you know, I mean, you used to do a
pretty good impression. You want to try it?
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Help?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Hell, it always sounds like help.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
That's what it sounds like to me. It's uncanny and unnerving.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah, it is. And I always laughed at that years
ago until like we got our own neighborhood peacocks, and
then I would hear it occasionally and I was like, yeah,
Josh's right, or is Josh in that backyard right now?
Like it's one of those two things is happening. Yeah,
it's pretty shrill. It can get annoying if you live
near one. I don't mind it so much because I
didn't live a next door to one, but it's usually
(28:24):
in the morning and evening during mating season. It can
pick up a bit. So I don't know if there
were complaints or if these local peacocks just you know,
met their natural end. You know. I don't know if
they were taken out, or if they were moved to
a farm, you know what I'm saying, yeah, or if
they just had little peace strokes that's bad.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
They were elf struck. So they also they honked too, Like,
I can't even do the honk and the goose that's
that hoot dash thing sounds kind of like, oh yeah
it does.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
I'm a little hankish.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Yeah, so they can do that a lot too, And
if you put it all together, yeah, it can be
very annoying. But I chuck, I cannot figure out what
the difference is between Umi's grandma's neighborhood my neighborhood, because
I have a completely different opinion of the annoyance level
of peacocks. Now I don't understand why, but there's the facts.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Well, maybe you aged into it, I guess.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
So I'm older wives or gentler. Yeah, we're peacock loving.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Sure, I think we all get that way. Sure, all right,
So let's talk about the history of these things. Jumping
back a little bit a few thousand years ago. The
ancient Phoenicians were the first folks to say, hey, these
things are great, Let's move them around to different places,
because these things strutting around a palace is really something
to see. So they brought them from India to Syria.
(29:56):
They were traded around the Mediterranean at that point, and
they did become like a status symbol if you were
nobility or royalty, or had a lot of money or
lived in a palace, then you probably wanted to some
peacock strolling around your property.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, you might also want to eat them. Bow, I
forgot to send you this thing that I found. The
Romans ate them, but they specifically liked their tongues. Peacock
tongue was a delicacy in ancient Roman times in the
Middle Ages.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Wait, where are you going to send me?
Speaker 2 (30:27):
This is what I'm about to tell you.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Oh okay, I thought You're gonna send me a peacock
tongu in the male Flashow.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Why is this so? In the Middle Ages in Europe,
they would actually eat peacock like the whole thing, but
they figured out a way to remove the skin so
that the feathers all came off too. Then they would
roast the bird, and then they would redress it with
its feathers to be served at to the lord of
(30:56):
the manor by the most beautiful girl at the party.
I guess, yeah, And then it would just sit there
for a little while. They would carve into it, eat
it and have a lot of trouble digesting it because
apparently it's really tough. So much so that doctors of
the time were like, don't eat peacock. It's really just
not good for you.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
So they would just stick the feathers back in it
in an ornamental way.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
The picture I saw, the painting I saw made it
look like they did a pretty good job of it. Yeah, yeah,
making it look like it was alive again.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah. Interesting. I think even a lot of meat eaters
appreciate the animal not looking like its original form when
it's on the plate.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Sure right, you don't really want to recognize it?
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah? Like it? You know, I love a brainzeno, but
I don't like that fish head looking up at me.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Oh no, no, you don't like roly poly fish heads?
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Uh no, I don't want to see it. But I'll
still dine on a braanzeno. I got a friend whose
brother will take that eyeball out and eat it right
at the table in front of everybody.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Wrong with that guy.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I mean, supposedly that's the thing to do, you know,
use all the animal. But I just I don't want
to eat an eyeball.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
No to ever tell you. By the time we went
to H and F and like we we just went
too far. No, so for everybody who doesn't know. H
and F is a restaurant in Atlanta, and they're well
known for like using all parts of the animal. Yeah,
and we went and we were like, if you go
further down the menu like gets more and more hardcore.
(32:28):
We just kind of tried it one time and we
got as far as fried chicken heads or beaks, which
had a lot of the head attached still in goodness,
like the whole table just kind of it just took
a dark turn and everybody stopped talking and it was
a bad jam. So I don't recommend the fried chicken
beaks at Homan and Finch anymore.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
That sounds too much like a mcnoggan. You remember that, No,
I think I sent it to you years ago. It
was supposedly in the thing a chicken nuggets, but it
was a a deep fried little chicken head that got
through and they called it the mcnoggan.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
That is what HNF sells as a as a dish.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
All right. It's been very instructive, for sure.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I know, our poor, our poor live show fan Sarah
is like, I know, sorry, I.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Asked for it, Yeah, I said, butthole earlier too. This
is going downhill, all right, so back to history in
peacocks Lord Krishna in the Hindu tradition, where's peacock feathers
is a head dress, and there have been many other
examples over the years in Greek mythology and Roman mythology
about the peacock. I believe Harrah even had peacocks pulling
(33:42):
her chariot.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
At ten miles an hour.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
She she was protected by a giant named Argus who
had one hundred eyes, and he was killed by Hermes,
and so she brought him back as the peacock. That's
a great story. Yeah, there's also the cock throne, right.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah, the peacock throne is one of the most expensive
things that's ever been made. If it drives at home,
I think it was about twice the cost of the
taj Maha to build this one throne, which had oh,
twenty five hundred pounds of gold, five hundred pounds, not
(34:22):
five hundred precious stones, five hundred pounds of precious stones.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Including the Corey Newer diamond, which is one hundred and
five carrot diamond. Pretty amazing stuff. They managed. The Mughal
Empire in India managed to hang on to the throne
for about one hundred years until they were invaded by
the Persians, I believe, who were like, we're taking this throne.
This is essentially the reason we invaded was to get
(34:48):
this throne, and they disassembled it and basically sold it
off for parts. Right. Yeah, but if you go onto
the Internet and you search peacock throne, you will see
photographs of a peacock throne that looks pretty amazing, and
you will say, well, how could this have been destroyed
back in the seventeenth or eighteenth century? And the reason
(35:08):
why is because what you're looking at is the replica
that King Ludwig the Second of Bavaria, our friend, the
fairy tale King, had constructed for his castle. Nushwe look
at that, Nushefinstein. Yeah, which one?
Speaker 1 (35:27):
I don't know. I'm just amazed that you brought that around.
Nice work, thanks, any Uschefinstein sounds great.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Nuschwinstein. Yeah, any chance I have to bring King Ludwig
the Second into the story, I'm going to take it.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Well, you had that shirt made.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
That helps ask me about King Ludvig the Second.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Endangered? Yes or no? Indian bluefowl are not endangered. In fact,
they're doing really, really well, and you mentioned you know,
in places in Florida and even southern California, they can
get a little out of hand with their men. They
can tear up foliage, and they can poop all over
the place, and they can destroy habitats that other birds have.
(36:07):
So people sometimes now even are trapping them and giving
them vasectomies.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, there's a town called pine Crest, a suburb of Miami,
which is giving peacock's vasectomy. So if you couldn't have guessed,
pine Crest is a rather well healed suburb of Miami
because a lot of towns can't afford to give peacocks vasectivey.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
That green pea fowl, they are under threat though they're
listed is endangered because they are from Southeast Asia and
a lot of their natural habitat has been done away
with thanks to land development and agricultural mowing down of
their environment and also farmers who will poison them if
they come into their fields.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Yeah, there's only I think ten twenty thousand left of
them in the wild. Hopefully someone steps up, because losing
any animal to extinction sucks, but losing particularly beautiful ones
that their very presence makes the world a better place
to live in those are You don't want to lose those.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
That's right. And as for the congo p fowl, we
don't want to forget about those spellas they are vulnerable,
also habitat loss and hunting, and they're about ten thousand
of those in the wild.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Man alive.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
I know.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Let's see. I'm trying to think if there's anything else.
I don't really think we have anything else, do we?
Speaker 1 (37:29):
I got nothing else?
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Oh? A group of pea fowl? You know? Yeah? What
is it? Collective nouns? Isn't that what they're called?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Uh? Yeah, that was another name form something of something.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yes, I remember what you talking about. I don't remember
what it was too, but yeah, in this case, peacocks,
A group of peacocks are called a pride, an ostentation,
or a party, a peacock party. I like that. I
do too, I like all three of them. Well, since
Chuck and I agreed that we like the collective nouns
(38:03):
for peacocks, then obviously we have just unlocked listener mail.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
I'm going to call this Maine and Billboards. Hey, guys,
longtime super fan of spreading the stuff. You should know
kool aid oh far and wide flavor eight. I think
they make any miles our drive to reach anywhere in
Maine flyby, So thanks for that. When you ask someone
in Maine how far away a destination is, be prepared
to often hear about an hour, but that can mean
(38:31):
forty five minutes to nearly two hours. Fun fact here
though about Maine. During a recent episode on Kadzu, you
were talking about how it takes over billboards, and I
know you get a lot of listener mail for Maine.
I thought you might like to know an exciting factoid.
Have you ever been to Maine and marveled at it's
natural beauty? Well, part of that is due to something
that's missing billboards. Guys. Maine law does not allowed billboards
(38:54):
of any kind. They have a very prescriptive law regarding
signs not on business property AKA and main vernacular official
business directional signs. The rules are very strict and include
a special provision that rolling signs like ones attached to
vehicles cannot even be used to get around these requirements.
And I think it is a thirty dollars license fee
(39:19):
to get a sign that can be forty eight inches
by twelve inches or seventy two inches by sixteen inches,
and you can only use two fonts. They must be
white with a single color background. And this is literally
just to say, like my pressure washing business is down
there or whatever. They say that people may consider billboards
(39:41):
to be detrimental to the preservation of scenic resources. And
that is a great law. And that's one reason we
love Maine. And that is from who is that from?
That's from Katrina Peterson.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Thanks Katrina. That is a very sensible, awesome law. I
love that. It's one of the worst things to see
when you're driving down the highways, to billboards. It is terrible.
Great thanks for letting us know that. Hopefully as Main goes,
the rest of the world follows. And if you want
to be like Katrina and get in touch with this
and let us know of a very sensible local law.
(40:13):
We love that kind of thing. You can send us
an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 2 (40:26):
The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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