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A male peacock shows off its full display. Photo by / |
Peacocks have some of the most ostentatious (and famous) feathers in the animal kingdom. When in full display mode, the males are a sight to behold, their grand fan of feathers reaching heights of over five feet, with shimmering greens, blues, and coppers forming the distinctive 鈥渆yespot鈥 patterns.
But as it turns out, peahens (the females of the species) don鈥檛 pay too much attention to the impressive height of those flamboyant feathers. , published yesterday in the Journal of Experimental Biology, found that peahens directed their gaze at the lower part of the display, including the denser feathers at the very bottom of the fan. The upper parts of the display, which includes most of the eyespots as well as the distinctive 鈥渇ishtail鈥-shaped feathers at the end (see photo above), were mostly ignored. 鈥淚t was definitely surprising when we initially saw that most of the gaze was directed at the lower portion of the peacock鈥檚 train,鈥 says Jessica Yorzinski, the lead author of the study.
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A peahen shows off her eye-tracking system while a peacock displays in the background. Photo by Jessica Yorzinski. |
The researchers outfitted 16 peahens with small helmets that use a high-tech vision-tracking system to see exactly what the birds are looking at. The system, adapted from similar ones used in psychological studies of humans, uses infrared light reflections to pinpoint where the birds are looking. The researchers analyzed the footage from the setup (see an example ) and calculated the amount of time each peahen spent looking at the various parts of the males鈥 displays.
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A peahen (foreground) and displaying peacock (background). The "backpack" housing part of the eye-trackign system can be seen on the peahen. Photo by Jessica Yorzinski. |
For Yorzinski, the most intriguing part of the research was seeing the peacock displays through the females鈥 eyes. She says she could essentially 鈥渁sk [each peahen] what visual signals she鈥檚 using when she鈥檚 choosing a mate.鈥
The researchers were also curious why the peacocks would evolve such tall displays if the females were only looking at the bottom part. They suggest that females may use the top of the display to find the males in the dense vegetation of their native habitat. But once they locate the males, the females turn their gaze away from the towering heights of the feathers, focusing solely on the lower feathers.
Yorzinski says that this is the first time anyone has used this eye-tracking technology to find out exactly what catches a peahen鈥檚 fancy. The technique could be expanded to other species, offering bird鈥檚-eye views like never before.
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