Peacock opening pros and cons

The marriage pattern of peacocks is polygamous. In the wild, there is only one adult male peacock in a flock, and the rest are females and young peacocks. Male peacocks are very jealous, and when two males come together, they will immediately fight to the death.

There is a peacock garden in the Yuantong Mountain Zoo, where a group of beautiful green peacocks is kept.

When it comes to peacocks, people immediately think of peacocks opening their screens. The long tail feathers are like a huge folding fan that opens with a brush, and the five-color gold and Cui money-like spots dazzle in the sunlight with a dazzling halo of splendor and beauty. People often liken the beautiful girl to a peacock. Female peacocks do not grow magnificent tail feathers, only male peacocks will open the screen.

Unfortunately, the male peacock with purple and brown crown feathers in the peacock garden has been kept for more than two years, but he has never been seen to open his screen. Even in the spring flower season, when it enters its breeding season, it seems to have no interest in exhibiting its tail feathers, which are brighter than the multicolored haze. Not only that, when it first entered the garden, the tail feathers were layered, thick and dense, walking upside down, appearing to be quite weighty, with a length of one meter six, after more than two years, not only is it not fuller, more abundant and thicker, but it has become thinner and shorter, measuring only one meter four long, and no longer walking upside down, but easily and slightly cocked.

Every autumn is the season for peacocks to change their feathers, only to see their old feathers fall off, not their new feather growth, the tail screen naturally shrinks shorter and thinner. It is only seven years old, with no natural or man-made disasters, the peacock can live to about 15 years old, that is, it is in its golden age, in the prime of life, and it is impossible to be aging and tail screen shrinkage decay.

It is not like it is sick, it eats and sleeps well, it is full of energy, except for the tail screen, the metabolism of other parts of the body feathers is very normal, the wing feathers are growing rapidly, the wings are much more developed than when it entered the garden. I have done a comparison, when he first entered the park, it took him seventeen flaps to get from the ground to the trunk of the tree in the cage, but now he only needs eight flaps to get to the trunk, deducting the weight reduction of the tail screen, the speed of the wing feathers is also very impressive.

For the zoo, this is ludicrous. Visitors buy tickets to the peacock court, it can be said that no one is to see how much you have peacock flying skills, the only thing you want to see is the peacock open screen. The place where you should grow you do not grow, where you should not grow crazy, this is not intentionally in a quarrel?

Look, a large group of tourists standing in front of the cage, some waving flowers in their hands, some waving painted handkerchiefs, vigorously teasing the male peacocks. It is said that peacocks have a fondness for beauty, and when they see something colorful in front of them, they will open their screens out of jealousy. However, the tourists worked for half a day, but the male peacock only shook the purple and brown crown feathers on the top of his head, and no other indication. There is a popular saying that if you see a snake cross its tail, you will have bad luck, and if you see a peacock open its screen, you will have good luck. The male peacock refused to open his screen, and the tourists were disappointed to come and go.

As if to demonstrate to the tourists and show his determination not to compromise or open his screen, the male peacock twisted his long neck and plucked a jewel blue plume from his tail screen and threw it on the ground.

Some say that this male peacock is stingy by nature, plucking a hair to benefit the world but not for it, and can not afford to add beauty to the world; some say that this male peacock is prejudiced against people and is deliberately working against the excited tourists; some say that this is a male peacock suffering from self-mutilation, morbidly trying to eclipse his image.

All these explanations are contrary to the characteristics of the species and belong to the subjective speculations imposed on the peacocks by human wishful thinking and without any basis. If we analyze the ecological habits of the peacock carefully, we may not complain that the male peacock with purple and brown crown feathers refuses to open his screen.

Many people regard the tail feathers of male peacocks as a gift from the Creator, believing that these beautiful plumes are the most valuable asset of male peacocks, the capital of male peacocks worth showing off, and the most cherished treasure of male peacocks. This view is not related to the facts.

Only from the point of view of survival, the male peacock on this tail screen, there are a hundred harms without a benefit. The color is too conspicuous, easy to be found by ferocious beasts and raptors; length is twice the body, huge, not conducive to travel in the jungle; weight is too heavy, is a burden, affecting the speed and distance of the flight. If a group of peacocks is strolling in the jungle and a hungry leopard passes by from a distance, the first thing it will do is to see the male peacock with long tail feathers as its first target to capture.

The leopard uses the cover of the bushes to silently approach the group of peacocks, attempting to ambush them plus a surprise attack to get the prey. The peacocks noticed the windless leaves of grass in the distance, and although they could not see the leopards yet, they sensed the danger approaching and retreated deeper into the jungle in panic.

The female peacock and the young peacock, who had not yet grown out of their tail feathers, passed through the jungle smoothly with their nimble bodies; the male peacock, with his long tail screen, was entangled in the vines and tied up by the artemisia at one time, and had a very difficult time. The male peacock, with his long tail screen in tow, got tangled up in the vines and tied up in the artemisia, and had a very hard time getting around. When he came to a bush of goat's trotter flowers, the vines were tangled up in his tail screen, and he pecked and clawed at them, trying to untangle them.

Even if the male peacock was lucky and did not get tangled up in the vines, he escaped together with other peacocks to the tree, but the leopard was already leaping up from behind. The male peacock, because of the heavy tail screen, had to stay in the air for two to three seconds, with his wings flapping desperately before he could successfully fly.

The male peacocks, with a one-second time difference, flew off the ground before the leopard arrived and fled to the trees. The peacocks' concern was not superfluous, as the leopard was not willing to give up the meal, and hid in the nearby grass, and after dark, climbed the tree with great climbing skills, looking for prey with wide green leopard eyes. The male peacock's tail screen, which is twice as long as his body, cannot be hidden tightly and is exposed. The leopard with excellent eyesight sees it at a glance, and its strong paws step on the tail screen like a fox caught by the tail of a hunter ......

The vast majority of birds have tail feathers, but they are generally no longer than the length of the body and act as a rudder in flight, regulating body balance when making sharp turns. Some birds, mainly pheasants, have much more developed tail feathers than others, ranging from fluffy tail feathers like those of the pheasant to tail feathers that are two or three times longer than their bodies, like those of the long-tailed pheasant. But the tail feathers of the horse chicken, although large, but not long, compared with the strong body, are quite proportional; in the long-tailed pheasant although the tail plume is excessively long, only two or three, compared with the body, the weight is not too cumbersome.

In addition to the legendary phoenix, all birds, only the male peacock with such a heavy, large, and long tail screen will bring a heavy burden to survival.

According to testimony, in the male peacock in ancient times, tail feathers are not as developed as we see now, the length, number, and weight are only one-third of the present. The tail feathers served the same function as most birds, to regulate balance in flight.

The long tail feathers had the added benefit of being able to suddenly stop flying and land vertically at low altitudes by holding the tail feathers open. This is obviously beneficial for survival, so male peacocks cherish their tail feathers and often groom them by drawing water from a pond. This is a sign of masculinity as well as male pride. So, in the courtship process, male peacocks consciously and unconsciously show their tail screens to show that they are healthy and strong, standard and ideal candidates, and female peacocks are also very concerned about whether their partners have first-class tail screens. Over time, this has become a courtship imperative, an aesthetic stereotype, and an unbreakable tradition.

Male peacocks with long and large tail screens are favored by female peacocks, while male peacocks with short and small tail screens are looked upon with disdain by female peacocks. This means that only a few males are lucky enough to be fathers, while most males are forced to become celibate. This makes the competition for the male peacock tail screen more intense and more heated. The tail feathers are longer and more colorful; you have two circles of eye spots on each tail feather, and I have three circles of eye spots, one more than you, immediately you compared; although your tail screen is longer than mine, I can be high and open like a folding fan, I certainly dominate as the winner of the competition ......

As a female peacock, since there are so many opportunities to choose from, her appetite is bound to be higher, and her eyes are bound to become more and more demanding, picking the best of the best, choosing the best of the best; finding a male peacock with a superior tail screen not only satisfies her vanity nature, but the young male peacocks in her offspring will also inherit the genetic advantage of a large and colorful tail screen and become the best in the competition within the species. This is equivalent to fueling the fire, making the competition for the male peacock tail screen more and more intense.

Finally, the male peacocks found that their tail screen had evolved to an impractical degree, not only losing the function of the tail feathers but also becoming a heavy burden, a fatal liability, often killed by fierce beasts and raptors. Wise male peacocks, concerned for their safety, want to stop the tail-screen competition. However, it is not easy to change traditional practices. It requires a consensus among all members of the population, otherwise, whoever stops the tail-screen competition will be eliminated, while those who do not stop the tail-screen competition will be able to take advantage of the situation.

A bad competition once slipped into the vicious circle of track, want to brake is very difficult.

On the one hand, more and more long and bigger and thicker and denser and bulkier and more gorgeous tail screen poses a threat to life. On the other hand, if you do not let your tail screen is getting longer and bigger and thicker and bulkier and more gorgeous you will lose in the courtship and lose the opportunity to reproduce offspring. It's a dilemma, an inescapable loop.

Generally speaking, competition is beneficial. Species can evolve in competition, society can progress in the competition. Competition produces benefits, and competition makes the world vibrant and dynamic. However, nothing is absolute, and when competition is in a state of disorder when it cannot be controlled and regulated by reason, it can destroy a species, or destroy society. This phenomenon, in biology, is called "evolutionary divergence".

There is no better example than the extinction of the saber-toothed elephant. To win in the competition to dominate a wider territory and occupy more food resources, saber-toothed elephants such animals desperately towards the direction of taller and stronger evolution. 1973 Heshui County, Gansu Province, China excavated a "Yellow River saber-toothed elephant" with, a body length of eight meters, four meters high, incisors more than three meters long, and is more than twice the modern African elephant. To maintain the calories needed for the huge body, each saber-toothed elephant had to eat more than two hundred kilograms of food every day. Suddenly, one day, the Earth entered a glacial period, the climate became cold, a large swath of plants died, other small and medium-sized animals because of need for not much, the limited food sources can still struggle to survive, and saber-toothed elephants can not stand hunger, a group of a group fell dead, into today's nature museum for people to visit and memorial fossils.

There are also many lessons to be learned from this in human society. For example, in the arms race, as a country or nation, a strong national defense is a guarantee of security, but the endless arms race, depleted national power so that the people are not living, and the economy is on the verge of collapse, but make the country and the nation in trouble.

For example, in modern cities, the larger the more grand, prosperous metropolis is a sign of a strong country, complete facilities, convenient living, and cultural life is rich and colorful, but if a city continues to develop without limits, population expansion, crowded housing, air pollution, traffic jams, employment difficulties, law and order chaos, theft and robbery, drug trafficking, prostitution and other social evils into a disaster, but will give residents It will bring troubles and sufferings to the residents.

There is also a system like a college entrance examination, where everyone is equal in front of the score, which is conducive to the elimination of privileges, the elimination of unhealthy winds such as pulling connections and going through the back door on the issue of further education, and the formation of an incentive mechanism to make schools diligent and hardworking, minimizing the phenomenon of talent being buried. However, the negative effects of competition in the college entrance examination are also obvious, whether schools, families, or students themselves, the score as the pursuit of the only goal, other aspects of ability are regarded as idle, nerds are increasingly popular, the real talent fewer people ask for ......

Now look back at the male peacock with purple and brown crown feathers in the Yuan Tong Mountain Peacock Garden, it is easy to understand why it refuses to open its screen. With no competition around, there is no need for him to put himself in a dilemma. He will make his tail feathers shorter and smaller, which does not affect his life with these female peacocks, but can reduce the burden on himself, walking more easily and flying more lightly, why not do it?

The solution to the problem is very simple: build another iron cage in the peacock garden and introduce a new male peacock, which is the introduction of a competition mechanism. The male peacock with purple and brown crown feathers was afraid that his female peacock would be taken away by the new male peacock, so he took care of his tail screen, combing it diligently, and opening it diligently.