Stuff You Should Know - Ba-Gawk! How Peacocks Work

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

If you’ve ever wanted to know why peacocks have such amazing feathers, why they’re not all called peacocks, and plenty of other neat stuff about peacocks, then perhaps this episode on peacocks is for you. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is Tracy V. Wilson from Stuff You Missed in History Class. Do you like podcasts, music, and audiobooks? Because when you subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited, you get all three in one app. Imagine listening to your favorite podcasts and music on the go to work, school, the gym, or better yet, vacation. Now, imagine being on vacation

with your favorite audiobook from Audible, then listening to a new one every month from a huge selection of popular titles. That sounds like a pretty good vacation, right? Audible is now included on Amazon Music Unlimited. Download the Amazon Music app now to start listening. Terms apply.

Join iHeartMedia chairman and CEO Bob Pitman for a special episode of the hit podcast, Math & Magic, Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing, as he interviews the iconic and prolific Martha Stewart in front of a live audience in celebration of her 100th book. Did you ever think you were going to wind up writing 100 books? Yeah. You did? Yeah, it's just a minor goal.

Listen to Math & Magic on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck. Jerry's here too. And I can't think of anything hilarious to say, so I'm just gonna say this

is stuff you should know. That's right. Live show listener request edition because Peacocks came to us. Did you get her name? Or can we just say the wonderful young girl at our Atlanta live show? I really want to say Sarah, but I'm not sure. So whoever you are, young girl who suggested Peacocks at the Atlanta show, write in to tell us your name

so we can tell everybody. Yeah, so this is a great idea. We're talking about peacocks, which is, if you want to look at the word itself, it's English, and it is derived from the Latin word pavo, and in Old English, that was pronounced pawaw, P-A-W-A, and that was shortened over the years to po, eventually pocock, then powcock,

and I guess peacock, and it's linked a little bit to this old expression proud as a Poe Which is you know how a peacock kind of struts around all prideful and then eventually it became peacock Yeah, and you would think it would have become peacock like in the 1950s or 60s But no it became peacock as far back as the 1300s. Yeah So that's it for etymology of peacocks But there's a little more about the word peacock because a lot of you are getting things wrong and you need to be corrected harshly sometimes.

A peacock is specifically the male of the species. Obviously. The P hen is the female. So if you see a brown, kind of drab looking peacock, and you say, look at that brown peacock, well, you just sound like a hayseed. It's a peahen, and she's not drab, she's camouflaged. That's right.

They're little babies called Pea Chicks. And if you want to talk, as we're going to, about the species as a whole, we're going to be saying peafowl, and then we will, you know, when we say cock, we're gonna mean male. When we say hen, we're gonna mean lady. And when we say chick, we're gonna mean bee bee.

Okay, I think we've really laid it out. There are three main species, speaking of laying this out, of the P-fowl, and you have the most common that if you live in the United States and you've seen one, maybe in a zoo, maybe in a park, or maybe just strutting around your neighborhood. Yeah, we have some walking around our area, too. Oh, yeah. I mean, the same ones from many years ago?

Because you told the story years ago about the sound of the peacock. Sorry, no. Those were Yumi's grandma's peacock, neighborhood peacock. Sorry, no, those were, those were Yumi's grandma's peacock, neighborhood peacocks. Okay. And for some reason, the ones that live around me are not a disturbance at all. I mean, they make their sounds, but it's few and far between.

It's not annoying at all. It's kind of cute. And it's just a different experience than it was around Yumi's grandma's house. All right, fair enough. I mean, I've talked before about my neighborhood peacocks. I have not seen them in a few years, so I don't know if they're still around.

And the house is on my morning dog walk. So I haven't seen those peacocks around in a little while, those peafowl. So I'm not sure if theyocks around in a little while, those peafowl. So I'm not sure if they're around. But we used to see them occasionally and it was all great fun. But where I started 10 minutes ago saying is if you see one of those in the United States, you're probably almost certainly looking at a blue peafowl or an Indian peafowl. Yeah, for sure. They are not native to the United States, although they thrive in coastal warmish areas, kind of muggy areas you could say too, although also arid areas. Anyway,

California and Florida, let's just specify that. They do really well there, but they're native to India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Yes, exactly. They're the most common, little less common, but still more common than the third group is the green P-fowl or the Javanese P-fowl, so native to Java, Southeast Asia, and Myanmar. And then what's our little third grouping? The Congo P-fowl.

That's right. It's like a little mini turkey, he looks like, they look like. They're native to the Congo basin in Africa. And the Indian and Javanese Peafowl prefer kind of open-ish fields and maybe kind of tree-lined streets. That's why they love neighborhoods, parks, like it replicates their native habitat.

The Congo Peefowl prefer to live in the forest itself. Yeah, that's right. So that's where they like to live. No matter which kind of Peefowl you're talking about, they're all gonna be omnivores. They eat lots of seeds and berries and, you know, plant life and stuff like that. As well as some insects. But they'll also munch down on a mouse or a little cute lizard or a snake if

they want to if they're feeling peckish I guess. Get it peckish? Mm-hmm. So they are the among the largest flying birds in the world. Something a lot of people don't realize about peafowl is that they can fly. Apparently the green peafowl, yeah, I said that right, is a pretty strong flyer. The Indian or blue peafowl is not great,

but they can make it to the roof of a two-story building pretty fast if a dog like Momo barks at them. I can tell you that. Yeah, I've seen that too. So they can fly and they are very large too. Blue peafowl, the most common one, they're the biggest of the three. The adult male can measure 50 inches.

It's a little over four feet. God knows how many meters we're talking about. Let's say 1.2. And it's trained so that what you think of as the tail feathers are actually not the tail. They actually protrude out of the back of the peafowl or the peacock. In this case, that can be five to seven feet long. So they are a big, big bird.

Not big bird size, but they're still a big bird. That's right. And as you'll see, that big beautiful train is a big part of the mating ritual. So when you see that thing fully displayed, when that peacock wants to have a little good time with a peahen, that thing may go five to seven feet in every direction.

It's amazing. Very, very large. They also use it to defend their territory. I saw a guy laying pavers once, and he was apparently laying pavers on a peacock's territory because the peacock had his train fully fanned out. Oh, really? And was shaking and staring at the guy,

like, I'm gonna kill you if you don't stop laying pavers right there. Oh, wow. The guy just completely ignored him. It was pretty funny to see because that peacock was quite serious. I bet. So the blue adult male peacock is about a 13 pounder. If you don't count wild turkeys,

which are usually put into a different family, although they can be in the pheasant family, they are the largest, the peacock that is, is the largest in the pheasant family. You're not gonna take a shot at the family name for the turkeys? No, I wouldn't gonna, but you can. Melia grididae.

Oh, great. I think I got it. I didn't even practice that one. Good job. But those turkeys, did you say they can weigh up to 30 pounds? I didn't say that about the turkeys, but yeah, they're big.

That's a big turkey. It's like baby Huey types. Yeah, I got that turkey family living at my camp. There's six or eight of them now. They're just, they hang around together, get them on the camp cam. It's just lovely. Well, are they used to your presence or, because those things run, they have really sharp eyesight and they scatter quick.

No, no, I mean sadly all the wonderful camp activity is when I'm not there. I have a feeling that they peer through the woods and they're like, oh, the guys are down there again. Right. They'll leave tomorrow. Have you considered spending a weekend like standing up against a tree and not moving,

seeing what happens? No, I'll do that though. You should. Buy yourself some nice camouflage clothing first though, it'll help a lot. I've already got that stuff. Okay. So I also said that the blue pea hens

are sometimes considered drab, and I mean compared to the males, they are not quite as easy on the eyes, right? But they're brown and they're drab because the female blue pea hens are responsible for guarding their nests. And even though they spend a lot of time roosting in trees, very often they sleep overnight in trees, they build their nests on the ground in little depressions on the ground lined with sticks.

And so they have to defend that nest at all times. The easiest way to defend it is to not be seen. So they steer clear of being seen by things like leopards and tigers and mongoose and all that by blending in with the surrounding terrain. And momos. Yeah, Momo doesn't actually want to predate the peacock. She just wants it to know, like, this is Momo's yard, peacock. Yeah, let him know who's boss.

Right, exactly, Momo's boss. So the green peafowl, you know, we're going to talk a little bit about all of them, even though the blue were the most common. But the green, if it's not mating season, you may not be able to tell them apart. They both have that really nice green neck, that sort of light green here and there. And during mating season is when you're gonna see the male's train grow a lot longer, but then they molt and they shed those. So more or less they look about the same

when it's not mating season. Yeah, and they're both very, very beautiful. They have amazingly beautiful feathers as well. Very pretty. The little Congo Peafowl, they're kind of cute. Dark blue neck feathers and dark green and black train. Females are also brown. Um, but they, uh, they're just not... Nothing can beat a blue peacock.

Yeah. They just can't, I'm sorry. That's a hill I'll die on if I have to. Yeah, it's fantastic. Uh, and if you have one. No, it's fantastic. And if you have one in your neighborhood as a pet in captivity, if one of your neighbors does, you may just get used to that sound

and get used to seeing them because they could live 40, 50 years when kept as pets. I'm not suggesting that they be kept as pets. I'm just saying that people do that. They live about 10 to 25 years in the wild. Yeah, they can also kind of haul pretty fast. They can run up to 10 miles an hour when they need to. Okay. You got to get a good running start if you want to get off the ground, I guess.

That's right. With their little, like, aviator goggles on. Yeah. Totally. You want to take a break? Yeah. All right. Well, we're going to do everybody, watch this. ["Stuff You Should Know"] ["Stuff You Should Know"] ["Stuff You Should Know"] ["Stuff You Should Know"] ["Stuff You Should Know"]

["Stuff You Should Know"] ["Stuff You Should Know"] This is Tracy V. Wilson from Stuff You Missed in History Class. Do you like podcasts, music, and audiobooks? Because when you subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited, you get all three in one app. Imagine listening to your favorite podcasts and music on and audio books, because when you subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited, you get all three in one app. Imagine listening to your favorite podcasts

and music on the go to work, school, the gym, or better yet, vacation. Now, imagine being on vacation with your favorite audio book from Audible, then listening to a new one every month from a huge selection of popular titles. That sounds like a pretty good vacation, right? Audible is now included on Amazon Music Unlimited.

Download the Amazon Music app now to start listening. Terms apply. Martha Stewart has been a household name for over four decades and still isn't done. Join iHeartMedia chairman and CEO, Bob Pitman, for a special episode of the hit podcast, Math and Magic, Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing, as he interviews this icon in front of a live audience

to celebrate her 100th book, Martha, the Cookbook, 100 Favorite Recipes with lessons and stories from my kitchen. Did you ever think you were gonna wind up writing 100 books? Yeah. You did? Yeah, it's just a minor goal.

This intimate and wide-ranging conversation between friends covers the pivotal decisions in Martha's career, the philosophy that has guided her, and the source of so much of her creative inspiration. They actually looked at the July issue that I had prototyped and they said, this is fabulous. What would you do next July? And I said, well, living is a limitless subject matter. Listen to math and magic on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dani Shapiro, host of the hit podcast, Family Secrets.

How would you feel if when you met your biological father for the first time, he didn't even say hello? And how would you feel if your doctor advised you to keep your life-altering medical procedure a secret from everyone? And what if your past itself was a secret and the time had suddenly come to share that past with your child? These are just a few of the powerful and profound questions we'll be asking on our eleventh season of Family Secrets. Some of you have been with us since season one, and others are just tuning in. Whatever the case, and wherever you are,

thank you for being part of our Family Secrets family, where every week we explore the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves. Listen to season 11 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So I think it's high time that we talk about what everybody thinks of when they think of peacocks, which is that amazing train of feathers spread out in a fan behind them.

And it's correct to say him. And this is all part of the mating ritual, right? That's the whole point of those feathers. Again, the peacocks will use it to try to ward off or intimidate trespassers in their territory, but for the most part, the whole thing is to impress the peahens. That's right.

And when a male wants to impress a peahen, that peacock will prop up those feathers into a big, beautiful fan. Dave likens it, Dave helped us with this, to like an inverted umbrella, so it's sort of, you know, when you see it, it's sort of pointed back from their butthole area towards the end. And they will shake those feathers, and the shaking isn't just like, hey, look how pretty and iridescent this gorgeous train is, science has discovered semi-recently that those vibrations are in lockstep with the peafowls' head feathers

that they used to think were just for show, but now they realize they vibrate at the same intensity and that they can actually sort of feel when those tail feathers are vibrating in their direction through their head feathers. Yeah, they're like receivers. Isn't that neat? Super cool. They resonate at the same rate. The male peacock, when he shakes those feathers,

that fan, he can shake it at more than 25 times a second. Mm. And that resonance, I think it's like 25.6 hertz to be exact. That just happens to be tuned in almost precisely to the crest feathers on the peafowl's head. And in addition to the site, apparently peahens have amazing sight. So they're seeing everything that the peacock's showing them, but also they're feeling it. Like that's transmitting, that vibration or resonance is transmitting to their head.

So it's quite a, like you're not going to turn down a peacock if you're a P.Hen. They're pretty amazing dudes. That's right. And before we get emails, I'm sure Josh will admit that when you said it just happens to vibrate at the same frequency, that it's no accident at all. It's called natural selection, baby. Oh yeah, sure. I mean, you're just being cheeky, but I'm sure somebody would write in and say,

no, Josh, it didn't just happen to vibrate that way. It's by design. Intelligent design people, you mean? No, no. creationists? No, by design as natural selection. That's very teleological. I don't even know what that means. What's that mean?

It means that everything has a purpose, so it was like designed to be a certain way. I love that. See, people, when you don't know a word, it's okay to say, I don't know what that means. It sure is, Chuck. That's a great example to set. So, and you didn't talk down to me. You told me the definition. Now I'm a little bit smarter because of you. Yeah. I wasn't like, dummy.

Listen up. Teleological. All right. So, we need to cover this part of the mating ritual because the fact of the matter is the peacock loves to get around the block, if you know what I mean. They have a social structure called a LEC, L-E-K, which is basically a harem. And the male is going to mate with several females. But here's the part that's a little maybe not intuitive.

Even though the male is mating with many females, the male isn't running the show as far as who he gets to do that with. Yeah. So he's putting on this huge show, not to be like, I'm hypnotizing you, baby, do my bidding. He's doing it because he's like, check me out. Don't you like me? Like, look at this. Aren't I amazing? And the female can either be like, I've seen better, or she'd be like, yeah, you're right up my alley. You just happen to be vibrating at my resonance. Right. You know?

This is, that's teleological. So yeah, so one of the ways that a male will make himself seem even more virile than he is, there's something called the hoot dash noise. And just the hoot is the noise part. It's called a hoot dash because right after the male hoots, he dashes toward the female and they start mating, right? It's actually quite disturbing to see.

A lot of mating in the animal world is really disturbing. I saw a video too. It's like the dash was very close to the hoot. Yeah. But that's what the noise is called. So males realize that like the more hoot dashing or hoot sounds that they make, the more females in earshot, but not in eyeshot, I guess,

will hear, oh, wow, like, Terry really gets it on with a lot of P. hens. I'm gonna give him a shot next time he comes around because he must be very virile. Like, a third of those hoot dash sounds are faked, essentially. I'm going to give him a shot next time he comes around because he must be very virile. Like a third of those hoot dash sounds are faked, essentially. That's right. So when that finally happens, the female peahen will scratch out a little depression in the ground, basically, and line it with sticks, and that's their little nest. They're gonna lay four eggs that are gonna hatch after four weeks,

and those little pea chicks are up and around pretty much right out of the gate. It'll take them a couple of weeks to fly, and those boys that are peacocks aren't gonna get those train feathers until their second year. They're like, why don't you just chill for a couple of years and not think about that thing?

Yeah, they are so cute, too. Do not rely on the internet for what a baby peacock looks like. Apparently, it's been a great example to demonstrate how much AI is just screwing the internet up. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, if you go on Google Image search for baby peacocks, like people think that there's pictures of like a giant or like a miniaturized, cute, big-eyed peacock and that that's a baby peacocks. Like, people think that there's pictures of like a giant or like a miniaturized, cute, big-eyed peacock and that that's a baby peacock. They all look like pea hens, like little brown pea hens, but even if they're peacocks, it's

how they start out. So just check it out. Just search baby peacock for images. And it's a lie. It's a lie, for sure. Oh my god! That's the cutest little iridescent blue baby duckling thing I've ever seen. Right, but it doesn't exist. That's not real. Hey, don't blame me, blame the AI running the internet. Yeah, those eyes are suspiciously large and Disney-like. So one other thing about the pea chicks is that they stay with their mom for two to six months depending on whether they're in captivity in the wild.

Moms are much more maternal instinct-wise in the wild than they are in captivity. So you know, depends on the situation how long they hang around them. But just watching, have you ever seen a peahen with her little peach chicks following her? Uh, no. I've just seen the turkey version at the camp. It's very cute. Oh, my God. I'll bet baby turkeys are pretty cute, too.

Yeah, the following around is just very cute, because, like, mom's up front, and there's, like, six little guys and girls just following along, like, I can keep up, I can keep up. And there's always six little guys and girls just following along like, I can keep up, I can keep up. And there's always one straggler that has to like run faster to catch up with the group. Yeah, Barney.

I love that guy. Who? Barney. That's a perfect name. So the dads as far as blue and green peacocks go are not around, they're complete absentee dads. But hey, if you're feeling bad for the family unit, just go to the Congo, because those Congo peafowl are monogamous.

They don't have those leks. They like one lady, and they hang around and feed and raise peachics with mommy. Yeah. Pretty great, huh? Yeah, it's great. So I think we should talk a little bit about natural selection, sexual selection, Charles Darwin. Kind of what you were alluding to earlier, right? Yeah, because Charles Darwin was bringing

a little too much of his human baggage to some of this research, it seems pretty clear, don't you think? Uh-huh, for sure. And how was he doing that? So Darwin grew up or lived in the Victorian era where women were viewed as passive, submissive. They were just there and had their fingers crossed that a man of adequate dashingness would come along and marry them, right?

So that meant that it was the men, the males of the Victorian era human species in England at least, that were responsible for sexual selection. They chose the winners and the losers among women. Well, Darwin was looking around the world of nature, basically all the other animals, and was like, that's not really what I'm seeing out there. And in the peacocks in particular, the females are, again, drab, really camouflaged. While the males have these amazing, beautiful displays, that strongly suggests that the males are performing for the females, and it's the females who are doing the sexual selecting. And he had such a hard time wrestling with this. There's a quote from him that said, the sight of a pea feather made him sick. Because he could not give in.

And he finally was, you know, science got the better of him. And he's like, that's just how it is. I don't like it. But females in the animal kingdom are typically the ones who select sexually and end up, they're the drivers of natural selection. They choose what passes on to the next generation based on the kind of male mates that they choose.

That's right, and that choosing is based on that flashy display that we're gonna talk a little bit more about as far as the colors and stuff go and that vibration. But if there's science behind that, or is there science behind that? Yes. In 1994, it seems like it at least, there were some researchers in Britain

that found that the bigger peacocks that had more eye spots, you know, they look like eyes. What are they called? Ocelli? Ocelli? Ocelli? In the Italian it'd be celli because C followed by a vowel is a ch sound. So let's just go with Italian, say ocelli. Okay. But the more of those they have and the larger that they are and the more just big and beautiful they are, it looks like the larger offspring they're going to have,

they're going to be more likely to survive. So it seems like they are more genetically fit. Yeah, and those eye spots play a real starring role in this whole sexual selection mating process, right? So the feathers in and of themselves are pretty amazing, but the eye spots, these little dots with different colors on them that are scattered all across the train feathers, the fan, they are of a slightly different structure, slightly different density than the rest

of the feathers surrounding them. So when that train resonates at 25.6 hertz, they appear to stand still and float against the background of the other feathers that are vibrating at the same frequency, but are just of a slightly different density. And this is so important. These ocelli, the eye spots are so important.

The scientists have figured out that other species that also have eye spots, they don't share a common ancestor with peacocks that had eye spots, Chuck. Eye spots evolved separately over different times among different species. They're that important for mating. That's right.

And thanks to our listener, Mal, in the Ruby Ridge episode, it's called convergent evolution and not co-evolution. Very nice. I say we take a break then since we're done talking about eye spots, right? Yeah. We'll finish up with Act 3 right after this. Oh, wait, wait. There was one more thing about eye spots, right? Yeah, we'll finish up with Act Three right after this. Oh, wait, wait, there was one more thing about eye spots.

Wait, stop the presses! Jerry, roll tape! Researchers have figured out for sure that eye spots play a big role because some poor schmoe of a peacock had his eye spots covered up, and they said, go out to ladies night and see what happens. Right.

And he got nothing from nobody ever while his eye spots were covered up. Yeah, the copulation, the quote is, their copulation success declined to almost zero. Almost, they were just being nice. They were. All right, now are we breaking? Yes, I don't have any other breaking news.

All right, everybody take five, then we're back. MUSIC This is Tracy V. Wilson from Stuff You Missed in History Class. Do you like podcasts, music, and audiobooks? Because when you subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited, you get all three in one app. Imagine listening to your favorite podcasts and music on the go to work, school, the gym,

or better yet, vacation. Now, imagine being on vacation with your favorite audiobook from Audible, then listening to a new one every month from a huge selection of popular titles. That sounds like a pretty good vacation, right? Audible is now included on Amazon Music Unlimited. Download the Amazon Music app now to start listening.

Terms apply. Martha Stewart has been a household name for over four decades and still isn't done. Join iHeartMedia chairman and CEO Bob Pitman for a special episode of the hit podcast, Math and Magic, Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing, as he interviews this icon in front of a live audience to celebrate her 100th book, Martha, the Cookbook, 100 favorite recipes with lessons and stories from My Kitchen. Did you ever think you were gonna wind up writing a hundred books?

Yeah. You did? Yeah, it's just a minor goal. stories from my kitchen. This intimate and wide-ranging conversation between friends covers the pivotal decisions in Martha's career, the philosophy that has guided her, and the source of so much of her creative inspiration. They actually looked at the July issue that I had prototyped and they said, this is fabulous. What would you do next July? And I said, well, living is a limitless subject matter. Listen to math and magic on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dani Shapiro, host of the hit podcast, Family Secrets.

How would you feel if when you met your biological father for the first time, he didn't even say hello? And how would you feel if when you met your biological father for the first time, he didn't even say hello? And how would you feel if your doctor advised you to keep your life-altering medical procedure a secret from everyone? And what if your past itself was a secret, and the time had suddenly come to share that past with your child? These are just a few of the powerful and profound questions we'll be asking on our 11th season of Family Secrets. Some of you have been with us since season one and others are just tuning in. Whatever the case and

wherever you are, thank you for being part of our Family Secrets family where every week we explore the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves. Listen to Season 11 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. We are back to finish up with peacocks and we're going to talk a little bit about something

we did an entire episode on, and that is iridescence. This was many years ago that we did an ep on iridescence, and there's, if you want to really deep dive on the science of it, you can go listen to that ep. But what we're looking at in the case of peacock feathers and why they look iridescent and are just so shiny and majestic looking is because of the shape. It's a physical shape of something and not necessarily a color of something, right?

Yeah, the pigments that are in the peacock's tail feathers are melanin. And melanin typically looks brown to us. It's what gives human skin kind of a brown cast to it. That is melanin pigment. And it's no different in a peacock's feathers, but the structure is totally different, like you said. There's a crystalline structure of overlaying barbs that if you look in an electron microscope, you can see quite clearly. And those barbs, those crystal barbs of melanin, there's like little gaps between them. And in fact, it creates what's called a partial band gap, which means that electromagnetic waves do not penetrate some area

depending on where that light is hitting. To put it simply, Chuck, depending on which angle, which direction, light hits these melanin rods, the crystalline melanin rods, it's gonna reflect or absorb all different kinds of light. And so the same structure can reflect or absorb different kinds of light depending on where the light hits it, which means if you're looking at it one way and you move slightly to the left,

you're looking at a different part of that structure and it's reflecting different colored light. And that's how iridescence comes along. That's right. Partial band gap, not to be confused with the partial gap band, which is the sad tour when two out of three of those guys went out on the road. It wasn't a very good tour, was it? It wasn't a very good joke. But I couldn't help myself.

Yeah, I mean, that's iridescence in a nutshell. That's basically how it works across nature. It's just about the structure of the thing. And what do we talk about? We talked about fish and butterfly wings, mainly, I think, on that episode. It's so neat. Yeah, it's just the structure.

If you take a bunch of crystals and pile them on top of each other in little weird repeating patterns, they're going to become iridescent. It's gorgeous. Apparently Isaac Newton figured it out all the way back in 1704. Yeah, pretty impressive. Based on Peacock feathers, he said, check these out, man. I know what's going on.

You'll just have to find out. That's right. We do need to talk about their Yelp because it's a, you know, I mean, you used to do a pretty good impression. You wanna try it? Help! Yeah. Help! It always sounds like help.

That's what it sounds like to me. It's uncanny and unnerving. Yeah, it is. And I always laughed at that years ago until like we got our own neighborhood peacocks and then I would hear it occasionally. And I was like at that years ago until like we got our own neighborhood peacocks and then I would hear it occasionally and I was like, yeah, Josh is right. Or is Josh in that backyard right now? Like it's one of those two things that's happening. Yeah, it's pretty shrill. It can get annoying if you live near one. I don't mind it so much

because I didn't live next door to one, but it's usually in the morning and evening. During mating season it can pick up a bit. So I don't know if there were complaints or if these local peacocks just, you know, met their natural end, you know, I don't know if they were taken out or if they were moved to a farm, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I know what you're saying. Or if they just had little pea strokes. They were elf struck. Or if they just had little pea strokes and died.

They were elf-struck. So they also, they honk too. Like I can't even do the honk. Like a goose? That's that hoot dash thing sounds kind of like a honk. Oh yeah, it does sound a little honkish. Yeah, so they can do that a lot too. If you put it all together, yeah, it can be very annoying,

but I, Chuck, I cannot figure out what the difference is between Yumi's grandma's neighborhood and my neighborhood, because I have a completely different opinion of the annoyance level of peacocks now. I don't understand why, but there's the facts. Well, maybe you aged into it. I guess so. I'm older, wiser, gentler, more peacock loving. Sure. I think we all get that way.

Sure. All right, so let's talk about the history of these things. Jumping back a little bit, a few thousand years ago, the ancient Phoenicians were the first folks to say, hey, these things are great. Let's move them around to different places because these things strutting around a palace is really something to see. So they brought them from India to Syria.

They were traded around the Mediterranean at that point. And they did become like a status symbol. If you were nobility or royalty or had a lot of money or lived in a palace, then you probably wanted some peacocks strolling around your property. Yeah, you might also wanna eat them. Ew. I forgot to send you this thing that I found.

The Romans ate them, but they specifically liked their tongues. Peacock tongue was a delicacy in ancient Roman times. Okay. In the Middle Ages. Wait, where are you gonna send me? This is what I'm about to tell you. Oh, okay. I thought you were gonna send me a peacock tongue.

In the mail. Flash ride. You're like, why is this packet bleeding? So in the Middle Ages in Europe, they would actually eat peacock, like the whole thing. Yeah, okay. But they figured out a way to remove the skin so that the feathers all came off too.

Then they would roast the bird and then they would redress it with its feathers to be served to the lord of the manor by the most beautiful girl at the party, I guess. And then it would just sit there for a little while. They would carve into it, eat it, and have a lot of trouble digesting it because apparently it's really tough. So much so that doctors of the time were like, They would just sit there for a little while, they would carve into it, eat it, and have a lot of trouble digesting it

because apparently it's really tough. So much so that doctors of the time were like, don't eat peacock, it's really just not good for you. So they would just stick the feathers back in it in an ornamental way. The picture I saw or the painting I saw made it look like they did a pretty good job of, yeah, making it look like it was alive again.

Yeah, interesting. I think even a lot of meat eaters appreciate the animal not looking like its original form when it's on the plate. Sure. Right. You don't really want to recognize it. Yeah. Like, you know, I love a brainzino, but I don't like that fish head looking up at me.

Oh, no? You don't like that fish head looking up at me. Oh no? You don't like roly poly fish heads? No, I don't want to see it, but I'll still dine on a Branzino. I got a friend whose brother will take that eyeball out and eat it right at the table in front of everybody. What is wrong with that guy? I mean, supposedly that's the thing to do, you know?

Use all the animal, but I just, I don't want to eat an eyeball. No, did I ever tell you about the time we went to H&F and like we just went too far? No. So for everybody who doesn't know, H&F is a restaurant in Atlanta, and they're well known for like using all parts of the animal. Yeah.

And we went and we were like, if you go further down the menu, like it gets more and more hardcore. We just kind of tried it one time and we got as far as fried chicken heads or beaks, which had a lot of the head attached still. Goodness. Like the whole table just kind of,

it just took a dark turn and everybody stopped talking and it was a bad jam. So I don't recommend the fried chicken beaks at Holman and Finch anymore. That sounds too much like a McNoggin. You remember that? No. I think I sent it to you years ago. It was supposedly in the thing of chicken nuggets but it was a deep-fried little chicken head that got through and they called it the McNoggin. That is what H&F sells as a dish. All right.

This has been very instructive. For sure. I know our poor live show fan, Sarah, is like, I'm sorry I asked for it. Yeah. I said butthole earlier too. This is going downhill. It is. All right.

So back to history in peacocks. Lord Krishna in the Hindu tradition wears peacock feathers as a headdress. And there have been many other examples over the years in Greek mythology and Roman mythology about the peacock. I believe Hera even had peacocks pulling her chariot. Nat. At 10 miles an hour. Jon. Yeah, exactly. She was protected by a giant named Argus, who had 100 eyes, and he was killed by hermies,

and so she brought him back as the peacock. I thought that's a great story. Yeah. There's also the Peacock Throne, right? Yeah, the Peacock Throne is one of the most expensive things that's ever been made. If it drives it home, I think it was about twice the cost of the Taj Mahal to build this one throne, which had, oh, 2,500 pounds of gold, 500 pounds, not 500 precious stones,

500 pounds of precious stones. Uh-huh. Including the Khori Nur diamond, which is a 105 carat diamond. Pretty amazing stuff. They managed the Mughal Empire in India, managed to hang onto the throne for about 100 years until they were invaded by the Persians, I believe, who were like, we're taking this throne. This is essentially the reason we invaded, was to get this throne, and they disassembled it, and basically sold it off for parts, right? Yeah. But if you go onto the internet,

and you search peacock throne, you will see photographs of a peacock throne that looks pretty amazing, and you will say, well, how could this have been destroyed back in the 17th or 18th century? And the reason why is because what you're looking at is the replica that King Ludwig II of Bavaria, our friend, the fairy tale king, had constructed for his castle, Nuschvenstein? Ah, look at that. Nuschvenstein?

Yeah. Which one? I don't know. I'm just amazed that you Nuschvenstein? Yeah. Which one? I don't know, I'm just amazed that you brought that around, nice work. Thanks. Nuschvenstein, sounds great. Nuschvenstein. Yeah.

Any chance I have to bring King Ludwig II into the story, I'm going to take it. Well, you had that shirt made, that helps. Ask me about King Ludwig II. Yeah. Endangered, yes or no? Indian bluefowl are not endangered. In fact, they're doing really, really well.

And you mentioned, you know, in places in Florida and even Southern California, they can get a little out of hand with their menace. They can tear up foliage and they can poop all over the place and they can destroy habitats that other birds have. So people sometimes now even are trapping them and giving them vasectomies. Yeah, there's a town called Pinecrest, a suburb of Miami, which is giving peacocks vasectomies.

So if you couldn't have guessed, Pinecrest is a rather well-heeled suburb of Miami because a lot of towns can't afford to give peacocks vasectomy. Yeah. That green peafowl, they are under threat, though. Their list is endangered, because they are from Southeast Asia,

and a lot of their natural habitat has been done away with, thanks to land development and agricultural mowing down of their environment, and also farmers who will poison them if they come into their fields. Yeah, there's only, I think, 10,000 to 20,000 left of them in the wild. Hopefully someone steps up, because losing any animal to extinction sucks. But losing particularly beautiful ones that their very presence makes the world a better place to live in. Those are, you don't want to lose those.

That's right. And as for the Congo P-File, we don't want to forget about those fellas. They are vulnerable, also habitat loss and hunting, and there are about 10,000 of those in the wild. Man alive. I know. Let's see, I'm trying to think if there's anything else.

I don't really think we have anything else, do we? I got nothing else. Oh, a group of peafowl. You know, what is it? Collective nouns, isn't that what they're called? Yeah, or that was another name for them. Something of something. Yes, I remember what you're talking about.

I don't remember what it was, too. But in this case, peacocks, a group of peacocks are called a pride, an ostentation, or a party, a peacock party. I like that. I do, too. I like all three of them. Well, since Chuck and I agreed that we like the collective nouns for peacocks, then obviously we have just unlocked listener mail. I'm gonna call this Maine and billboards.

Hey guys, long time super fan of spreading the stuff you should know Kool-Aid, ooh, far and wide, flavor aid I think. They make any miles I drive to reach anywhere in Maine fly by, so thanks for that. When you ask someone in Maine how far away a destination is, be prepared to often hear about an hour. But that can mean 45 minutes to nearly two hours.

Fun fact here though about Maine, during a recent episode on Kudzu, you were talking about how it takes over billboards and I know you get a lot of listener mail for Maine. I thought you might like to know an exciting factoid. Have you ever been to Maine and marveled at its natural beauty? Well part of that is due to something that's missing. Billboards guys. Maine law does not allow billboards of any kind. They have a very

prescriptive law regarding signs not on business property aka in Maine vernacular official business directional signs. The rules are very strict and include a special provision that rolling signs like ones attached to vehicles cannot even be used to get around these requirements. And I think it is a $30 license fee to get a sign that can be 48 inches by 12 inches or 72 inches by 16 inches, and you can only use two fonts. They must be white, with a single color background, and this is literally just to say like,

my pressure washing business is down there, or whatever. They say the people of Maine consider billboards to be detrimental to the preservation of scenic resources, and that is a great law, and that's one reason we love Maine. And that is from, who's that from? That's from Katrina Peterson. Thanks, Katrina.

That is a very sensible, awesome law. I love that. It's one of the worst things to see when you're driving down the highway is a bunch of billboards. Yeah. It's terrible. Great, thanks for letting us know that.

Hopefully, as Maine goes, the rest of the world follows. And if you want to be like Katrina and get in touch with us and let us know of a very sensible local law, we love that kind of thing. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastatihartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, myHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Join iHeartMedia chairman and CEO, Bob Pitman, for a special episode of the hit podcast, Math and Magic, Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing,

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dani Shapiro, host of the hit podcast, Family Secrets. How would you feel if when you met your biological father for the first time, he didn't even say hello? And what if your past itself was a secret and the time had suddenly come to share that past with your child. These are just a few of the powerful and profound questions we'll be asking on our eleventh season of Family Secrets. Listen to Season 11 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.