Red Jungle Fowl

The Red Jungle fowl with the scientific name Gallus gallus is a large-sized bird falling under the family Phasianidae. Red junglefowl is believed to be the ancestor of all domestic chickens. Red jungle fowl is an attractive game bird with a long history of association with humans.

They are both herbivorous and insectivorous. The quick classification of this species is given below,

Scientific Classification

Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Chordata
Class	Aves
Order	Galliformes
Family	Phasianidae
Genus	Gallus
Species	Gallus gallus

Physical Characteristics:

The Red Jungle fowl is a large-sized bird with a very strong sexual dimorphism. Red jungle fowl has a small pale hooked bill. Its plumage is usually of gold, red, maroon, orange, gray, green color. It has two ear shaped white patches on either side of the head.Male strongly differentiates from female in that male have a red gold neck and head with long feathers on the upper parts and female has angled wing and distinct forked tail.


Females are spotted with red and brown with smaller, duller wattles and lack the long tail. The male weighs about 672 to 1450 g with the length being 65 to 75 cm, while the female weighs about 485 to 1050 g with the length being 42 to 46 cm. The five subspecies of the jungle fowl species varies majorly in the colour of the facial lappets, in the length, colour, in the size of the combs and terminal end shape.

Red Junglefowl are usually shy birds that spook easily and when threatened will run or flush into low flight. Red junglefowl males differ in a very peculiar way called as `Tidbitting` where in presence of a female it displays coaxing, peculiar cluck like calls and eye catching bobbing and twitching motions of the head and the neck.

It also repeatedly picks and drops off the food as long as the female recognizes it and picks up the food from the males beak or from the ground. Females prefer those males that produce peculiar anti-predator alarm calls.

Migration:

Red Junglefowl usually prefers thick secondary forest or wide open-area. Flight in these birds is almost purely restricted to reaching their roosting areas during the sunset in trees or any other high and relatively safe place from their predators.Their migration varies form breeding to non breeding seasons.During breeding season they are usually territorial and establish a hierarchical pecking order among birds in the same flock and when they are in non breeding season they join mixed folks with other game birds.

Food Habits:

Red Jungle fowl is omnivorous and they depend on seeds, insects, corn, soyabean, worms, and fruits for their food. They predominantly feed on pericarp of fallen palm oil fruits. They never feed at the same place for long periods while foraging. They prefer predominantly plant material for their food rather than on animal matter. Red jungle fowl forage on the ground for fruits, insects and seeds, using their feet to scratch away the leaf-litter in search of food.

Places Found:

These species are one of the birds which are commonly found in the Indian subcontinent. The wild species are spread from Tamilnadu, South India and are found more along the fothhills of the Himalayas. They stretch globally eastwards towards Southern China and into Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia.

They are so widely distributed that some of them can be found even in Christmas Island and Marianas. There are 3 other members of the same genus. They are a) Grey Jungle fowl: scientifically known as Gallus Sonneratii. The Grey Jungle fowl is found mostly in Peninsular India. They are also found in the Aravalli range
b) Green Jungle fowl: Scientifically known as Gallus Varius.The Green Junglefowl is found in Java, Lombok, Bali, Flores, Rinca, Komodo and small islands linking Java with Flores, Indonesia.
c) Srilankan Jungle fowl: Scientifically known as Gallus Lafayetti, mainly endemic to Ceylon, Srilanka, hence also known as the Ceylon jungle fowl,

Several subspecies are also found in various places eg. Gallus gallus bankiva (Java), Gallus gallus gallus (Indochina), Gallus gallus murghi (India), Gallus gallus domesticus (Domestic chicken), Gallus gallus spadiceus (Myanmar), Gallus gallus jabouijabouillei (Vietnam) The subspecies differ among themselves in the size of their combs,color of facial lappets,and in the length, colour and terminal end shape of the neck hackles of males during the breeding season.

Habitat:

Red Jungle fowl usually prefer wide open areas or thick secondary forest. Naturally the Red Jungle fowl ranges from India on the east to Southern China and on the down it extends to Indochina to Sumatra, Bali, and Java. The Red Junglefowl lives in areas where we find a mix of both dense vegetation and open ground. Such places can be found around plantations, villages and the edges of cities and towns. It will also travel through forests to other food sources or clearings.

The common range of the species is from East side of India to southern China over the continent and down Indochina to Sumatra, Java and Bali. It was spread by humans throughout the Polynesian islands. It is found in Pulau Ubin in Singapore also.

Mating and Nesting:

Red Junglefowl mainly breeds during the spring or summer season. Junglefowls are polygynous. Males and females mate with multiple opposite sex partners. Males make some particular sounds during the breeding season to attract the females.The females lay an egg each day which is creamy white in colour in a shallow depression scraped in the ground. Females only incubate and brood their young.

Once the eggs are hatched the chicks become fully feathered in four to five weeks.The typical clutch contains about five to seven eggs. The Red jungle fowl chicks reach the level of sexual maturity in five months of age.

Males reach the sexual maturity before the females. Red Jungle fowl can interbreed with other species of jungle fowls.

Threats and conservation:

International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) has categorized Red jungle fowl as 'Least concern' since they appear in large number in various parts of world. The Red jungle fowl are found in 21 states of India. Red jungle fowl with its special plumage like the eclipse moult in males is considered as the ancestor of all the domestic chicken. Red Jungle fowl is resistant to almost all the diseases that commonly affects the poultry.

Red jungle fowl is especially present in around 190 protected areas of them 31 are National parks and 159 wild life sanctuaries across India. Red jungle fowl meat is rich in Minerals such as copper and Iron. Recently the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) has started a two year project in collaboration with the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) Dehra Dun, and MLN College which is located in Yamunanagar has found that majority of the male fowl which they took into their custody were genetically pure. Now the conservation project is in its Second phase.

Interesting facts:

1. The average life span of a red jungle fowl is approximately 25 years.
2. The red junglefowl forms small mixed flocks during its non-breeding season like summer, autumn and winter.