NOVEMBER 2022
The red junglefowl is a tropical bird of the pheasant family. It is widely spread in Southeast and South Asia. It is also called Bankiva or Bankiva fowl. It is the species that gave rise to the chicken, the nowadays domestic chicken. Evidence from the molecular level derived from whole-genome sequencing revealed that the chicken was domesticated from red junglefowl about 8,000 years ago, with this domestication event involving multiple maternal origins. Since then, their domestic form has spread around the world where they are kept by humans for their meat, eggs, and companionship. In the green parks of Singapore you can see and more often hear the red junglefowl sometimes in big numbers. They’re not perfect flyers and spend the times mostly on the ground but when they need to cross a river you can see them inflight. For more pictures of wildlife in Singapore click here.