The Indian peacock has iridescent blue and green plumage, mostly metallic blue and green, but the green peacock has green and bronze body feathers.
More recently, Amotz Zahavi proposed in his handicap theory that these features acted as honest signals of the males' fitness, since less-fit males would be disadvantaged by the difficulty of surviving with such large and conspicuous structures. Charles Darwin suggested that they served to attract females, and the showy features of the males had evolved by sexual selection. The functions of the elaborate iridescent colouration and large "train" of peacocks have been the subject of extensive scientific debate. The latter is especially prominent in the Asiatic species, which have an eye-spotted "tail" or "train" of covert feathers, which they display as part of a courtship ritual. Male peafowl are known for their piercing calls and their extravagant plumage. The two Asiatic species are the blue or Indian peafowl originally of the Indian subcontinent, and the green peafowl of Southeast Asia the one African species is the Congo peafowl, native only to the Congo Basin. Male peafowl are referred to as peacocks, and female peafowl are referred to as peahens, although peafowl of either sex are often referred to colloquially as "peacocks."
Peafowl is a common name for three bird species in the genera Pavo and Afropavo within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae, the pheasants and their allies. Cladistically included but traditionally excluded taxa
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