I’m having a “discussion” with my son. We both agree that the teeming millions will decide.
Yes. The Red Jungle Fowl of southeast asia is the ancestor of the domestic chicken.
Here’s a link with some pictures:
http://www.cyborganic.com/People/feathersite/Poultry/NDG/BRKRedJF.html
In Southeast Asia there is a type of pheasant-like bird called the Wild Jungle Fowl. It is ancestral to domestic chickens.
Let me see if I can find a picture.
Bleedin’ fast prosimians…
Hah! In yer FACE, Doc!
Prosimians rule, hominids drool!
The wild ancestor of the chicken is the Red Jungle Fowl, native to Asia. It looks pretty much like a chicken:
http://www.geocities.com/hs_wong33/RedJungleFowl.html
There is apparently some question as to the existence of the “pure” wild strain, as it can crossbreed with domestic chickens.
You all have made my son extremely happy.
I swear if that boy says “In your face!” one more time I’m gonna give him such a smack!
They have jungle fowl running around loose at the San Diego Zoo, or at least they did several years ago when I was there. They look cute, especially with a string of chicks in tow. Until, that is, you sit down at the outdoor tables at the cafeteria to eat your hamburger and one of them leaps onto your able and bites it right out of your hand.
They have no fear, those wild chickens. No joke.
Yes, there are wild chickens on my friend’s farm on Maui. They stay around her house cause she feeds them chicken feed. They were originally brought over by the Portugese, so they don’t look like anything you’ve seen. They can fly a little bit and lay eggs in the crooks of trees, and she has to use a ladder to get them.
What about wild gerbils? Are there sabre-toothed wild hamster out there somewhere? Goldfish?
Gerbils are central Asian desert rats. The Mongolians sold them to us as pets after their attempts to export other vermin failed.
The Syrian Golden Hamster is, at best, very rare in the wild. The domestic hamsters are descended from one nest found in IIRC the 1930’s. No others have been reported from the wild since. Closely related species are agricultural pests throughout most of Europe and the Middle East.
Wild goldfish are an unremarkable variety of carp. It took centuries of breeding to turn bottom-dwelling scum sucking scavanger into the brightly coloured hunchbacked mutants you can buy at a pet shop.
Yes, pretty much every domesticated animal has a living wild ancestor. Except cows. The wild cow, or aurochs, went extinct in the 1600s. Wild horses live in central asia, there are dozens of species of wild gerbils, there are wild sheep, wild goats, wild dogs (wolves), wildcats (the african wildcat), wild rabbits, wild turkeys, wild ducks, wild goldfish (the carp), wild donkeys, wild llamas, wild mice, wild water buffalo, and wild pigs.
And let’s not forget the distinction between wild animals and feral animals. Feral animals had ancestors that were domesticated, but are now living wild. I believe the chickens that wishbone is talking about are feral chickens, not wild chickens. Razorback pigs are feral pigs, not wild ones. And of course feral cats and feral dogs are common all over the world.
There are, in fact, four species of Wild Chickens. Besides the Red Junglefowl Gallus gallus, ranging from eastern India to southeast Asia (and feral in many other places), believed to be the ancestor of domestic fowl, there are the Gray (G. sonneratii, western India), Ceylon (G. lafayetii, Sri Lanka = Ceylon), and Green (G. varius, Java and Lesser Sunda islands) Junglefowl. AFAIK, all these forms are capable of hybridizing.