This aspect of the fowl has always held a particular fascination for me. As it turns out, the Malayoid did have a distinctive color pattern all it's own quite distinct from the sexually dichromatic "black breasted red" of the Red Jungle Fowl. More on this in my next post. Dichromatic simply refers to the fact that the hen is colored differently from the cock, a cryptic pattern as is commonly found in birds and pheasants in particular. It makes biological sense since the hen must nest and incubate her eggs on the ground where she is vulnerable to predation.
For some interesting video of the Red Jungle Fowl, check this ARKive site:
http://www.arkive.org/red-junglefowl/gallus-gallus/video-12.html
These birds belong to Wameng Chue of "Perfect Rooster Aviary" in northern California:
http://perfectrooster01.webs.com/aboutus.htm
At this point it might be worthwhile to digress and touch on the fascinating tradition of the Hmong people of Vietnam and Laos in raising Jungle Fowl hybrids for use as decoys in the hunting of the Red Jungle Fowl.
This article by Kong Vang,
http://redjunglefowl.webs.com/ourroosters.htm, explains it very well.
If this proves difficult to read, go to Kong's home page and access the article from there.
