The elaborate train of the Indian peacock (Pavo cristatus) is the textbook example of a trait that is driven by female mate choice — or so everybody believed.
Mariko Takahashi at the University of Tokyo and her colleagues ran a seven-year study examining interactions between feral peahens and peacocks. They found no evidence that peahens preferred peacocks with trains that were longer, more marked or more symmetrical. They also noticed that peacocks usually actively shook their train after peahens initiated courtship, suggesting that train display is not luring females.
The train may once have been driven by sexual selection, but today it seems that the hens have grown weary of the ornament.
Anim. Behav. 75, 1209–1219 (2008)
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