Modern people perceive chicken exclusively as a pet - a source of dietary meat and fresh eggs. The history of the species indicates that the bird comes from the wild, and its ancestors still live in the vast jungle and bamboo thickets.

The ancestor of the home hen is the banker jungle chicken. Representatives of the order of chickens appeared more than 6000 years ago in China, India and Southeast Asia. From there, the birds spread to Europe, where they were domesticated and gradually took the form of modern domestic chicken.

It is noteworthy that in the territory of South Asia, Indochina and the islands of Indonesia, wild species of red jungle chicken still live. For habitat, the bird chooses a wooded and shrubbery with mountainous terrain.

Interesting fact: wild chicken is capable of flying. The bird prefers to equip its nests on the ground, but if necessary, it is ready to fly up a tree and settle there.

What does a wild chicken look like today?

It is quite difficult to meet a real jungle chicken even in its native habitat. Locals are increasingly crossing wild species with domestic species, eradicating the original type species.

The ancestors of domestic hens are much smaller in size than their descendants. The average weight of the female: 500-700 grams; male - 900-1200 grams. The cock is distinguished by its colorful coloring with a red-gold tint on the back and a black-brown abdominal cavity. The males are decorated with brown, blue-black and green feathers.On the head of a banker's rooster stands a red scallop.

The female jungle chicken has a less noticeable color: black-brown feathers with yellowish edges, a short tail, a dirty gray head and back. Despite a number of anatomical changes that occurred with the bird after domestication, the main features of the layers are preserved from their ancestors.

Interesting fact: Banker chicken is the absolute record holder for the number of banknotes with its own image. The portrait of a rare bird is printed on coins from more than 15 countries of the world.

Nowadays, the jungle chicken continues to lead a familiar lifestyle: it feeds on seeds and grains, insects, small vertebrates. The process of taming birds, which was studied by Charles Darwin, is today completely controlled by man.

Domestic descendants of the kurasiformes serve the development of science, acting as models for genetic research. Birds have contributed not only to the household, but also to addressing virology and genome mutations.