How do peacock feathers get their colors?

Structural color from tiny light-reflecting structures

Why do the colors shimmer?

Iridescence changes color with viewing angle

What happens to the train each year?

It is molted after the breeding season

What is train rattling?

Shaking the train to make sound and shimmer

Peacock Feathers Quiz: Eyespots, Colors and the Train

Shimmering eyespots on a fanned train made Charles Darwin uneasy about how beauty evolves, and this peacock feathers quiz explains the science. Play an interactive set of 10 questions on train coverts, ocelli, structural color, iridescence, molting, train rattling, Darwin's sexual selection, mate choice studies, peahens and India's national bird.

Start Peacock Feathers Quiz

🎯 Daily Trivia Challenge • 🧠 10 Questions • ⏱️ 150 Seconds

Question 1 / 10 Time: 150s

Train
What are the long feathers of a peacock's train?
Count
Roughly how many feathers make up the train?
Eyes
What are the eye-like spots called?
Color
How do peacock feathers get their colors?
Shimmer
Why do the colors shimmer?
Molt
What happens to the train each year?
Rattle
What is train rattling?
Darwin
Which theory did Darwin develop partly to explain the peacock's train?
Females
What are female peafowl called?
India
Of which country is the Indian peafowl the national bird?

Explanations: answer key for all 10 questions

Q1: What are the long feathers of a peacock's train?
Answer: Elongated upper tail coverts
The real tail is short underneath.
Q2: Roughly how many feathers make up the train?
Answer: About 200
Many carry eyespots.
Q3: What are the eye-like spots called?
Answer: Ocelli
They are eyespots.
Q4: How do peacock feathers get their colors?
Answer: Structural color from tiny light-reflecting structures
It is called structural coloration.
Q5: Why do the colors shimmer?
Answer: Iridescence changes color with viewing angle
Light interferes in the structures.
Q6: What happens to the train each year?
Answer: It is molted after the breeding season
It regrows for the next season.
Q7: What is train rattling?
Answer: Shaking the train to make sound and shimmer
It produces low-frequency sound.
Q8: Which theory did Darwin develop partly to explain the peacock's train?
Answer: Sexual selection
Mates choose showy partners.
Q9: What are female peafowl called?
Answer: Peahens
They have duller plumage.
Q10: Of which country is the Indian peafowl the national bird?
Answer: India
It was declared in 1963.

Peacock Feathers Quiz – Eyespots, Colors and the Train

A peacock's train is made of about 200 elongated upper tail coverts, not true tail feathers. Many end in eyespots called ocelli. The colors come mainly from structure rather than pigment: tiny arrangements of melanin and keratin reflect light, creating iridescence.

Males molt their trains after each breeding season and regrow them. During display they fan the train and shake it, called train rattling, which makes it shimmer and produces low-frequency sound.

Charles Darwin wrote that the peacock's train troubled him until he developed the theory of sexual selection, in which females choose showy mates. Studies suggest peahens pay attention to eyespots. The Indian peafowl is India's national bird.

What This Quiz Teaches

Nature and science fans will enjoy these questions.

How the train is built
Where colors come from
How males display
Which theory it inspired
Where peafowl live

Did You Know?

Green peafowl live in Southeast Asia.
White peacocks have a genetic color variant.
Peafowl roost in trees at night.
Their calls are loud and far-carrying.
Feathers are collected after natural molts.