ORNATE PLUMAGE OF MALE RED JUNGLEFOWL DOES NOT INFLUENCE MATE CHOICE BY FEMALES

Males of the polygynous red junglefowl, Gallus gallus, possess special ized, highly ornate plumage that previous correlational studies weakly implicated as a factor in mate choice by female junglefowl. To test m ore directly for a role of male plumage, pairs of males, one with norm al, wildtype plumage and the other with mutant plumage, were presented to female pure red junglefowl. One set of mutant males exhibited silv er, rather than the normal orange and red, coloration, while the other exhibited cryptic, brown plumage identical to that of female red jung lefowl. In neither case did females show a preference for the normal-p lumaged males. However, other manipulative choice tests showed that th e same females strongly preferred males with large combs. These result s indicate that although females do discriminate between males, the pl umage is not the target of the females' attention.