Green Peafowl - Classification

Classification

The species was first classified as Pavo muticus by Carolus Linnaeus, although it was previously described in Europe by Ulisse Aldrovandi as "Pavo Iaponensis" based on a Japanese painting given to the pope from the Emperor of Japan. Interestingly, these birds were depicted as having no spurs; Linnaeus followed Aldrovandi's description. The Japanese had imported Green Peafowl from Southeast Asia for hundreds of years, and the birds were frequently depicted in Japanese paintings. As a result, the type locality described by Linnaeus was "Habitat in Japonia", even though the species is not native to Japan. Today, there are no wild Green Peafowl in Japan, though the feral Indian Peafowl of Japan have some Green Peafowl genes. François Levaillant was one of the first western ornithologists to see a live bird, sent from Macau to an animal collection in Cape of Good Hope. From an Indian painting, George Shaw described a peafowl native to India with a "blue head" and an "upright lanceolate crest", which he named Pavo spicifer, the Spike-crested Peacock. Today, most taxonomists recognize this as a subspecies of Pavo muticus. A third subspecies was described in 1949 by Jean Delacour, as imperator. From the advice of a bird dealer in Hong Kong, Delacour concluded there were three races of Green Peafowl. Today most authorities recognize these three:

• P. m. muticus, the "Java Peafowl" (nominate). Found in Java. Was also known from the Malay Peninsula from the northern part extending south to Kedah. Often described as the most colourful of the three subspecies, the neck breast is a metallic golden-green with caerulean wing coverts. Females have prominent barring on the back and tertials.
• P. m. imperator, the "Indo-Chinese Peafowl." From east Burma to Thailand, southern China and Indochina, this subspecies has the widest distribution. Formerly found in Macau and Hainan. imperator is similar to muticus but its neck is a darker green and has more black on its wing coverts and secondaries. The facial skin is more intense in colouration compared to the other races.

• P. m. spicifer, the "Burmese Peafowl." Found in northwestern Burma towards southwestern Thailand. Formerly also north-eastern India and Bangladesh, as well as northern Malaysia. This subspecies is larger and has a more robust build compared to other subspecies. Sometimes described as "duller" than the other forms, it has a matte gun metal-blue to olive-green neck and breast, and more black on the wing-coverts and outer web of secondaries. The crown of the male is violet-blue which often extends further back of the neck than other subspecies.

Delacour dismissed several aberrant specimens to be individual variations, but stated that through further research, more subspecies may be discovered. Few studies have been conducted to substantiate Delacour's classification, even though it is accepted by nearly all authorities. Some authors have suggested that the population found in Yunnan, which are traditionally classified as imperator, may be another race. The authors of a study in China, which was to determine the divergence period between Green and Indian Peafowl, also support this possibility. They note there appears to be two different forms of Green Peafowl in Yunnan which should be classified as distinct subspecies. Although research by Ettore Randi suggested that the Green Peafowl of Malaysia were the same subspecies as the extant muticus muticus of Java, further research has shown the two populations were not the same. Due to imperator's large range in Indochina, additional subspecies within its range have also been proposed. Compared to the extant population in Java, which have straight green crest, the Malay birds, which still exist in captivity, had a blue diffused crest that often falls forward. There also appears to be regional differences within the imperator birds of Thailand and the muticus of Java.