Some Observations on the Male Peacock

Male Peacock, originally uploaded by wooac.

I observed a male peacock near the Puffer Steam Train at the SF Zoo (where Tatiana the tiger mauled three boys). One male and five females within about 10 feet. The male shakes all his feather and turns around and shakes his tail. The females walk around and generally don't pay that much attention. The male peacock does push his head back and forth, like the Di Peacock dance but I'm not convinced this isn't just a natural consequence of being so far out of balance with his plumage and tail up in the air.

Evolution driven by sex played a mean joke of the male peacock. I watched a female peacock take a shot flight when the train passed nearby. The male is exerting incredible energy just to keep his feathers off the ground. When he is shimmering and shaking, he must be burning as enormous number of calories. Since his mobility is severely limited by all the stuff he carries to attract the other sex, there must be abundant food for the male peacock to survive.

Clearly all this plumage and ritualized dancing does work. But why? Why would a female peacock prefer some bizarre male who would have a hard time feeding himself or help feed the young. What is the evolutionary advantage? The male peacock is an amazing animal and makes me wonder what happens to a species without survival pressure and decisions are made based on plumage. How many generations did it take for the male peacock to take this form?

So what does this say about homo sapiens? When did modern medicine remove most of the selective pressure? Antibiotics? C-sections? No wonder steroids are so popular.