title: Owl

text: Owls exhibit specialized hearing functions and ear shapes that also aid in hunting. They are noted for asymmetrical ear placements on the skull in some genera. Owls can have either internal or external ears, both of which are asymmetrical. Asymmetry has not been reported to extend to the middle or internal ear of the owl. Asymmetrical ear placement on the skull allows the owl to pinpoint the location of its prey. This is especially true for strictly nocturnal species such as the barn owls "Tyto" or Tengmalm's owl. With ears set at different places on its skull, an owl is able to determine the direction from which the sound is coming by the minute difference in time that it takes for the sound waves to penetrate the left and right ears.The Hearing of the Barn Owl The owl turns its head until the sound reaches both ears at the same time, at which point it is directly facing the source of the sound. This time difference between ears is about 30 microseconds. Behind the ear openings are modified, dense feathers, densely packed to form a facial ruff, which creates an anterior-facing, concave wall that cups the sound into the ear structure. This facial ruff is poorly defined in some species, and prominent, nearly encircling the face, in other species. The facial disk also acts to direct sound into the ears, and a downward-facing, sharply triangular beak minimizes sound reflection away from the face. The shape of the facial disk is adjustable at will to focus sounds more effectively.


title: Owl

text: The prominences above a great horned owl's head are commonly mistaken as its ears. This is not the case; they are merely feather tufts. The ears are on the sides of the head in the usual location (in two different locations as described above).


title: Owl

text: While the auditory and visual capabilities of the owl allow it to locate and pursue its prey, the talons and beak of the owl do the final work. The owl kills its prey using these talons to crush the skull and knead the body. The crushing power of an owl's talons varies according to prey size and type, and by the size of the owl. The burrowing owl ("Athene cunicularia"), a small, partly insectivorous owl, has a release force of only 5 N. The larger barn owl ("Tyto alba") needs a force of 30 N to release its prey, and one of the largest owls, the great horned owl ("Bubo virginianus") needs a force over 130 N to release prey in its talons. An owl's talons, like those of most birds of prey, can seem massive in comparison to the body size outside of flight. The Tasmanian masked owl has some of the proportionally longest talons of any bird of prey; they appear enormous in comparison to the body when fully extended to grasp prey. An owl's claws are sharp and curved. The family Tytonidae has inner and central toes of about equal length, while the family Strigidae has an inner toe that is distinctly shorter than the central one. These different morphologies allow efficiency in capturing prey specific to the different environments they inhabit.


title: Owl

text: The beak of the owl is short, curved, and downward-facing, and typically hooked at the tip for gripping and tearing its prey. Once prey is captured, the scissor motion of the top and lower bill is used to tear the tissue and kill. The sharp lower edge of the upper bill works in coordination with the sharp upper edge of the lower bill to deliver this motion. The downward-facing beak allows the owl's field of vision to be clear, as well as directing sound into the ears without deflecting sound waves away from the face.


title: Owl

text: The coloration of the owl's plumage plays a key role in its ability to sit still and blend into the environment, making it nearly invisible to prey. Owls tend to mimic the coloration and sometimes the texture patterns of their surroundings, the barn owl being an exception. The snowy owl ("Bubo scandiacus") appears nearly bleach-white in color with a few flecks of black, mimicking their snowy surroundings perfectly, while the speckled brown plumage of the tawny owl ("Strix aluco") allows it to lie in wait among the deciduous woodland it prefers for its habitat. Likewise, the mottled wood-owl ("Strix ocellata") displays shades of brown, tan and black, making the owl nearly invisible in the surrounding trees, especially from behind. Usually, the only tell-tale sign of a perched owl is its vocalizations or its vividly colored eyes.


title: Owl

text: Most owls are nocturnal, actively hunting their prey in darkness. Several types of owls are crepuscular—active during the twilight hours of dawn and dusk; one example is the pygmy owl ("Glaucidium"). A few owls are active during the day, also; examples are the burrowing owl ("Speotyto cunicularia") and the short-eared owl ("Asio flammeus").


title: Owl

text: Much of the owls' hunting strategy depends on stealth and surprise. Owls have at least two adaptations that aid them in achieving stealth. First, the dull coloration of their feathers can render them almost invisible under certain conditions. Secondly, serrated edges on the leading edge of owls' remiges muffle an owl's wing beats, allowing an owl's flight to be practically silent. Some fish-eating owls, for which silence has no evolutionary advantage, lack this adaptation.


title: Owl

text: An owl's sharp beak and powerful talons allow it to kill its prey before swallowing it whole (if it is not too big). Scientists studying the diets of owls are helped by their habit of regurgitating the indigestible parts of their prey (such as bones, scales, and fur) in the form of pellets. These "owl pellets" are plentiful and easy to interpret, and are often sold by companies to schools for dissection by students as a lesson in biology and ecology.


title: Owl

text: Owl eggs typically have a white color and an almost spherical shape, and range in number from a few to a dozen, depending on species and the particular season; for most, three or four is the more common number. In at least one species, female owls do not mate with the same male for a lifetime. Female burrowing owls commonly travel and find other mates, while the male stays in his territory and mates with other females.


title: Owl

text: Recent phylogenetic studies place owls within the clade Telluraves, most closely related to the Accipitrimorphae and the Coraciimorphae, although the exact placement within Telluraves is disputed.


title: Owl

text: Some 220 to 225 extant species of owls are known, subdivided into two families: 1. true owls or typical owls family (Strigidae) and 2. barn-owls family (Tytonidae). Some entirely extinct families have also been erected based on fossil remains; these differ much from modern owls in being less specialized or specialized in a very different way (such as the terrestrial Sophiornithidae). The Paleocene genera "Berruornis" and "Ogygoptynx" show that owls were already present as a distinct lineage some 60–57 million years ago (Mya), hence, possibly also some 5 million years earlier, at the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. This makes them one of the oldest known groups of non-Galloanserae landbirds. The supposed "Cretaceous owls" "Bradycneme" and "Heptasteornis" are apparently non-avialan maniraptors.


title: Owl

text: During the Paleogene, the Strigiformes radiated into ecological niches now mostly filled by other groups of birds. The owls as known today, though, evolved their characteristic morphology and adaptations during that time, too. By the early Neogene, the other lineages had been displaced by other bird orders, leaving only barn owls and typical owls. The latter at that time was usually a fairly generic type of (probably earless) owl similar to today's North American spotted owl or the European tawny owl; the diversity in size and ecology found in typical owls today developed only subsequently.


title: Owl

text: Around the Paleogene-Neogene boundary (some 25 Mya), barn owls were the dominant group of owls in southern Europe and adjacent Asia at least; the distribution of fossil and present-day owl lineages indicates that their decline is contemporary with the evolution of the different major lineages of true owls, which for the most part seems to have taken place in Eurasia. In the Americas, rather, an expansion of immigrant lineages of ancestral typical owls occurred.


title: Owl

text: The supposed fossil herons ""Ardea" perplexa" (Middle Miocene of Sansan, France) and ""Ardea" lignitum" (Late Pliocene of Germany) were more probably owls; the latter was apparently close to the modern genus "Bubo". Judging from this, the Late Miocene remains from France described as ""Ardea" aureliensis" should also be restudied. The Messelasturidae, some of which were initially believed to be basal Strigiformes, are now generally accepted to be diurnal birds of prey showing some convergent evolution toward owls. The taxa often united under "Strigogyps" were formerly placed in part with the owls, specifically the Sophiornithidae; they appear to be Ameghinornithidae instead.


title: Owl

text: For fossil species and paleosubspecies of extant taxa, see the genus and species articles. For a full list of extant and recently extinct owls, see the article List of owl species.


title: Owl

text: Among the Kikuyu of Kenya, it was believed that owls were harbingers of death. If one saw an owl or heard its hoot, someone was going to die. In general, owls are viewed as harbingers of bad luck, ill health, or death. The belief is widespread even today.


title: Owl

text: In Mongolia, the owl is regarded as a benign omen. In one story, Genghis Khan was hiding from enemies in a small coppice when an owl roosted in the tree above him, which caused his pursuers to think no man could be hidden there.


title: Owl

text: Hootum Pyanchar Naksha by Kaliprasanna Singha (1841–1870), first published in 1861, is a book of social commentaries influential in Bengali literature. The name literally means "Sketches by a Watching Owl".


title: Owl

text: In Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian culture, the owl was associated with Lilith. This association also occurs in the Bible (in some translations) in Isaiah 34:14.


title: Owl

text: The modern West generally associates owls with wisdom and vigilance. This link goes back at least as far as Ancient Greece, where Athens, noted for art and scholarship, and Athena, Athens' patron goddess and the goddess of wisdom, had the owl as a symbol. Marija Gimbutas traces veneration of the owl as a goddess, among other birds, to the culture of Old Europe, long pre-dating Indo-European cultures.


title: Owl

text: T. F. Thiselton-Dyer, in his 1883 "Folk-lore of Shakespeare", says that "from the earliest period it has been considered a bird of ill-omen," and Pliny tells us how, on one occasion, even Rome itself underwent a lustration, because one of them strayed into the Capitol. He represents it also as a funereal bird, a monster of the night, the very abomination of humankind. Virgil describes its death howl from the top of the temple by night, a circumstance introduced as a precursor of Dido's death. Ovid, too, constantly speaks of this bird's presence as an evil omen; and indeed the same notions respecting it may be found among the writings of most of the ancient poets." A list of "omens drear" in John Keats' "Hyperion" includes the "gloom-bird's hated screech." Pliny the Elder reports that owls' eggs were commonly used as a hangover cure.


title: Owl

text: One of the etymologies offered for the name of the German folk hero Till Eulenspiegel is that it means "Mirror for Owls".


title: Owl

text: In Hinduism, an owl is the "vahana" (mount) of the goddess Lakshmi, especially in the eastern region of India. Owl is considered a symbol of wealth, prosperity, wisdom, good luck, and Fortune. This is the reason why Owl is seen with Godden Lakshmi, who is also the goddess the fortune, wealth, and prosperity. The Goddess Lakshmi is known to have a White Barn Owl as her "vahana".


title: Owl

text: At the same time, owls are also associated with evil times in Hinduism. At times, Chamunda (fearsome form of Chandi) is depicted seated on an owl, her vahana (mount or vehicle). Hindus believed that owls are messengers of death.


title: Owl

text: People often allude to the reputation of owls as bearers of supernatural danger when they tell misbehaving children, "the owls will get you", and in most Native American folklore, owls are a symbol of death.


title: Owl

text: According to the Apache and Seminole tribes, hearing owls hooting is considered the subject of numerous "bogeyman" stories told to warn children to remain indoors at night or not to cry too much, otherwise the owl may carry them away. In some tribal legends, owls are associated with spirits of the dead, and the bony circles around an owl's eyes are said to comprise the fingernails of apparitional humans. Sometimes owls are said to carry messages from beyond the grave or deliver supernatural warnings to people who have broken tribal taboos.


title: Owl

text: The Aztecs and the Maya, along with other natives of Mesoamerica, considered the owl a symbol of death and destruction. In fact, the Aztec god of death, Mictlantecuhtli, was often depicted with owls. There is an old saying in Mexico that is still in use: "Cuando el tecolote canta, el indio muere" ("When the owl cries/sings, the Indian dies"). The "Popol Vuh", a Mayan religious text, describes owls as messengers of Xibalba (the Mayan "Place of Fright").


title: Owl

text: The belief that owls are messengers and harbingers of the dark powers is also found among the Hočągara (Winnebago) of Wisconsin. When in earlier days the Hočągara committed the sin of killing enemies while they were within the sanctuary of the chief's lodge, an owl appeared and spoke to them in the voice of a human, saying, "From now on, the Hočągara will have no luck." This marked the beginning of the decline of their tribe. An owl appeared to Glory of the Morning, the only female chief of the Hočąk nation, and uttered her name. Soon after, she died.


title: Owl

text: According to the culture of the Hopi, a Uto-Aztec tribe, taboos surround owls, which are associated with sorcery and other evils.


title: Owl

text: The Ojibwe tribes, as well as their Aboriginal Canadian counterparts, used an owl as a symbol for both evil and death. In addition, they used owls as a symbol of very high status of spiritual leaders of their spirituality.


title: Owl

text: The Puebloan peoples associated owls with Skeleton Man, the god of death and the spirit of fertility.


title: Owl

text: The Yakama tribes use an owl as a totem, to guide where and how forests and natural resources are useful with management.


title: Owl

text: Encouraging natural predators to control rodent population is a natural form of pest control, along with excluding food sources for rodents. Placing a nest box for owls on a property can help control rodent populations (one family of hungry barn owls can consume more than 3,000 rodents in a nesting season) while maintaining the naturally balanced food chain.


title: Owl

text: Although humans and owls frequently live together in harmony, there have been incidents when owls have attacked humans. For example, in January 2013, a man from Inverness, Scotland suffered heavy bleeding and went into shock after being attacked by an owl, which was likely a eagle-owl. The photographer Eric Hosking lost his left eye after attempting to photograph a tawny owl, which inspired the title of his 1970 autobiography, "An Eye for a Bird".


title: Owl

text: Almost all owls are listed in Appendix II of the international CITES treaty (the Convention on Illegal Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) with four species listed in Appendix I. Although owls have long been hunted, a 2008 news story from Malaysia indicates that the magnitude of owl poaching may be on the rise. In November 2008, TRAFFIC reported the seizure of 900 plucked and "oven-ready" owls in Peninsular Malaysia. Said Chris Shepherd, Senior Programme Officer for TRAFFIC's Southeast Asia office, "This is the first time we know of where 'ready-prepared' owls have been seized in Malaysia, and it may mark the start of a new trend in wild meat from the region. We will be monitoring developments closely." TRAFFIC commended the Department of Wildlife and National Parks in Malaysia for the raid that exposed the huge haul of owls. Included in the seizure were dead and plucked barn owls, spotted wood owls, crested serpent eagles, barred eagles, and brown wood owls, as well as 7,000 live lizards.


title: Borneo

text: Borneo (; ) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and east of Sumatra.


title: Borneo

text: The island is politically divided among three countries: Malaysia and Brunei in the north, and Indonesia to the south. Approximately 73% of the island is Indonesian territory. In the north, the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak make up about 26% of the island. The population in Borneo is 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Additionally, the Malaysian federal territory of Labuan is situated on a small island just off the coast of Borneo. The sovereign state of Brunei, located on the north coast, comprises about 1% of Borneo's land area. A little more than half of the island is in the Northern Hemisphere, including Brunei and the Malaysian portion, while the Indonesian portion spans the Northern and Southern hemispheres.


title: Borneo

text: The island is known by many names. Internationally it is known as "Borneo", derived from European contact with the Brunei kingdom in the 16th century during the Age of Exploration. On a map from around 1601, Brunei city is referred to as Borneo, and the whole island is also labelled Borneo. The name "Borneo" may derive from the Sanskrit word "" (), meaning either "water" or Varuna, the Hindu god of rain.


title: Borneo

text: The local population called it "Klemantan" or "Kalimantan," which was derived from the Sanskrit word "Kalamanthana," meaning "burning weather" possibly to describe its hot and humid tropical weather. Indonesian historian Slamet Muljana suggests that the name "Kalamanthana" was derived from Sanskrit terms "kala" (time or season) and "manthana" (churning, kindling or creating fire by friction), which possibly describes the heat of the weather.


title: Borneo

text: In earlier times, the island was known by other names. In 977, Chinese records began to use the term "Bo-ni" to refer to Borneo. In 1225, it was also mentioned by the Chinese official Chau Ju-Kua (趙汝适). The Javanese manuscript Nagarakretagama, written by Majapahit court poet Mpu Prapanca in 1365, mentioned the island as "Nusa Tanjungnagara", which means the island of the Tanjungpura Kingdom. Nevertheless, the same manuscript also mentioned "Barune" (Brunei) and other polities on the island.


title: Borneo

text: Borneo was formed through Mesozoic accretion of microcontinental fragments, ophiolite terranes and island arc crust onto a Paleozoic continental core. At the beginning of the Cenozoic Borneo formed a promontory of Sundaland which partly separated from Asian mainland by the proto-South China Sea. The oceanic part of the proto-South China Sea was subducted during the Paleogene period and a large accretionary complex formed along the northwestern of the island of Borneo. In the early Miocene uplift of the accretionary complex occurred as a result of underthrusting of thinned continental crust in northwest. The uplift may have also resulted from shortening due to the counter-clockwise rotation of Borneo between 20 and 10 mega-annum (Ma) as a consequence of Australia-Southeast Asia collision. Large volumes of sediment were shed into basins, which scattered offshore to the west, north and east of Borneo as well into a Neogene basin which is currently exposed in large areas of eastern and southern Sabah. In southeast Sabah, the Miocene to recent island arc terranes of the Sulu Archipelago extend onshore into Borneo with the older volcanic arc was the result of southeast dipping subduction while the younger volcanics are likely resulted from northwest dipping subduction the Celebes Sea.


title: Borneo

text: Before sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age, Borneo was part of the mainland of Asia, forming, with Java and Sumatra, the upland regions of a peninsula that extended east from present day Indochina. The South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand now submerge the former low-lying areas of the peninsula. Deeper waters separating Borneo from neighbouring Sulawesi prevented a land connection to that island, creating the divide known as Wallace's Line between Asian and Australia-New Guinea biological regions. The island today is surrounded by the South China Sea to the north and northwest, the Sulu Sea to the northeast, the Celebes Sea and the Makassar Strait to the east, and the Java Sea and Karimata Strait to the south. To the west of Borneo are the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. To the south and east are islands of Indonesia: Java and Sulawesi, respectively. To the northeast are the Philippine Islands. With an area of , it is the third-largest island in the world, and is the largest island of Asia (the largest continent). Its highest point is Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia, with an elevation of .


title: Borneo

text: The largest river system is the Kapuas in West Kalimantan, with a length of . Other major rivers include the Mahakam in East Kalimantan ( long), the Barito, Kahayan, and Mendawai in South Kalimantan (, , and long respectively), Rajang in Sarawak ( long) and Kinabatangan in Sabah ( long). Borneo has significant cave systems. In Sarawak, the Clearwater Cave has one of the world's longest underground rivers while Deer Cave is home to over three million bats, with guano accumulated to over deep. The Gomantong Caves in Sabah has been dubbed as the "Cockroach Cave" due to the presence of millions of cockroaches inside the cave. The Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak and Sangkulirang-Mangkalihat Karst in East Kalimantan which particularly a karst areas contains thousands of smaller caves.


title: Borneo

text: The Borneo rainforest is estimated to be around 140 million years old, making it one of the oldest rainforests in the world. It is the centre of the evolution and distribution of many endemic species of plants and animals, and the rainforest is one of the few remaining natural habitats for the endangered Bornean orangutan. It is an important refuge for many endemic forest species, including the Borneo elephant, the eastern Sumatran rhinoceros, the Bornean clouded leopard, the Bornean rock frog, the hose's palm civet and the dayak fruit bat.


title: Borneo

text: Peat swamp forests occupy the entire coastline of Borneo. The soil of the peat swamp is comparatively infertile, while it is known to be the home of various bird species such as the hook-billed bulbul, helmeted hornbill and rhinoceros hornbill. There are about 15,000 species of flowering plants with 3,000 species of trees (267 species are dipterocarps), 221 species of terrestrial mammals and 420 species of resident birds in Borneo. There are about 440 freshwater fish species in Borneo (about the same as Sumatra and Java combined). The Borneo river shark is known only from the Kinabatangan River. In 2010, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) stated that 123 species have been discovered in Borneo since the "Heart of Borneo" agreement was signed in 2007.


title: Borneo

text: The highest elevations of Mount Kinabalu are home to the Kinabalu mountain alpine meadow, an alpine shrubland notable for its numerous endemic species, including many orchids.


title: Borneo

text: According to analysis of data from Global Forest Watch, the Indonesian portion of Borneo lost 10.7 million hectares of tree cover between 2002 and 2019, of which 4 million hectares was primary forest, compared with Malaysian Borneo's 4.4 million hectares of tree cover loss and 1.9 million hectares of primary forest cover loss. As of 2020, Indonesian Borneo accounts for 72% of the island's tree cover, Malaysian Borneo 27%, and Brunei 1%. Primary forest in Indonesia accounts for 44% of Borneo's overall tree cover.


title: Borneo

text: The island historically had extensive rainforest cover, but the area was reduced due to heavy logging by the Indonesian and Malaysian wood industry, especially with the large demands of raw materials from industrial countries along with the conversion of forest lands for large-scale agricultural purposes. Half of the annual global tropical timber acquisition comes from Borneo. Palm oil plantations have been widely developed and are rapidly encroaching on the last remnants of primary rainforest. Forest fires since 1997, started by the locals to clear the forests for plantations were exacerbated by an exceptionally dry El Niño season, worsening the annual shrinkage of the rainforest. During these fires, hotspots were visible on satellite images and the resulting haze frequently affected Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia. The haze could also reach southern Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines as evidenced on the 2015 Southeast Asian haze.


title: Borneo

text: In November 2018, scientists reported the discovery of the oldest known figurative art painting, over 40,000 (perhaps as old as 52,000) years old, of an unknown animal, in the cave of Lubang Jeriji Saléh on the island of Borneo.


title: Borneo

text: According to ancient Chinese (977), Indian and Japanese manuscripts, western coastal cities of Borneo had become trading ports by the first millennium AD. In Chinese manuscripts, gold, camphor, tortoise shells, hornbill ivory, rhinoceros horn, crane crest, beeswax, lakawood (a scented heartwood and root wood of a thick liana, "Dalbergia parviflora"), dragon's blood, rattan, edible bird's nests and various spices were described as among the most valuable items from Borneo. The Indians named Borneo "Suvarnabhumi" (the land of gold) and also "Karpuradvipa" (Camphor Island). The Javanese named Borneo "Puradvipa", or Diamond Island. Archaeological findings in the Sarawak river delta reveal that the area was a thriving centre of trade between India and China from the 6th century until about 1300.


title: Borneo

text: Stone pillars bearing inscriptions in the Pallava script, found in Kutai along the Mahakam River in East Kalimantan and dating to around the second half of the 4th century, constitute some of the oldest evidence of Hindu influence in Southeast Asia. By the 14th century, Borneo became a vassal state of Majapahit (in present-day Indonesia), later changing its allegiance to the Ming dynasty of China. Pre-Islamic Sulu, then known locally as Lupah Sug, stretched from Palawan and the Sulu archipelago at the Philippines; to Sabah, Eastern, and Northern Kalimantan in Borneo. The Sulu empire rose as a rebellion and reaction against former Majapahit Imperialism against Sulu which Majapahit briefly occupied. The religion of Islam entered the island in the 10th century, following the arrival of Muslim traders who later converted many indigenous peoples in the coastal areas.


title: Borneo

text: The Sultanate of Brunei declared independence from Majapahit following the death of the Majapahit emperor in the mid-14th century. During its golden age under Bolkiah from the 15th to the 17th century, the Bruneian sultanate ruled almost the entire coastal area of Borneo (lending its name to the island due to its influence in the region) and several islands in the Philippines. During the 1450s, Shari'ful Hashem Syed Abu Bakr, an Arab born in Johor, arrived in Sulu from Malacca. In 1457, he founded the Sultanate of Sulu; he titled himself as "Paduka Maulana Mahasari Sharif Sultan Hashem Abu Bakr". Following its independence in 1578 from Brunei's influence, Sulu began to expand its thalassocracy to parts of the northern Borneo. Both the sultanates who ruled northern Borneo had traditionally engaged in trade with China by means of the frequently-arriving Chinese junks. Despite the thalassocracy of the sultanates, Borneo's interior region remained free from the rule of any kingdoms.


title: Borneo

text: Since the fall of Malacca in 1511, Portuguese merchants traded regularly with Borneo, and especially with Brunei from 1530. Having visited Brunei's capital, the Portuguese described the place as surrounded by a stone wall. While Borneo was seen as rich, the Portuguese did not make any attempts to conquer it. The Spanish had sailed from Latin America and conquered the Brunei's provinces in the Philippines and incorporated it into the Mexico-Centered Viceroyalty of New Spain. The Spanish visit to Brunei led to the Castilian War in 1578. The English began to trade with Sambas of southern Borneo in 1609, while the Dutch only began their trade in 1644: to Banjar and Martapura, also in the southern Borneo. The Dutch tried to settle the island of Balambangan, north of Borneo, in the second half of the 18th century, but withdrew by 1797. In 1812, the sultan in southern Borneo ceded his forts to the English East India Company. The English, led by Stamford Raffles, then tried to establish an intervention in Sambas but failed. Although they managed to defeat the sultanate the next year and declared a blockade on all ports in Borneo except Brunei, Banjarmasin and Pontianak, the project was cancelled by the British governor-general Lord Minto in India as it was too expensive. At the beginning of British and Dutch exploration on the island, they described the island of Borneo as full of head hunters, with the indigenous in the interior practising cannibalism, and the waters around the island infested with pirates, especially between the north eastern Borneo and the southern Philippines. The Malay and Sea Dayak pirates preyed on maritime shipping in the waters between Singapore and Hong Kong from their haven in Borneo, along with the attacks by Illanuns of the Moro pirates from the southern Philippines, such as in the Battle off Mukah.


title: Borneo

text: The Dutch began to intervene in the southern part of the island upon resuming contact in 1815, posting "residents" to Banjarmasin, Pontianak and Sambas and "assistant-residents" to Landak and Mampawa. The Sultanate of Brunei in 1842 granted large parts of land in Sarawak to the English adventurer James Brooke, as a reward for his help in quelling a local rebellion. Brooke established the Raj of Sarawak and was recognised as its rajah after paying a fee to the sultanate. He established a monarchy, and the Brooke dynasty (through his nephew and great-nephew) ruled Sarawak for 100 years; the leaders were known as the White Rajahs. Brooke also acquired the island of Labuan for Great Britain in 1846 through the Treaty of Labuan with the sultan of Brunei, Omar Ali Saifuddin II on 18 December 1846. The region of northern Borneo came under the administration of North Borneo Chartered Company following the acquisition of territory from the Sultanates of Brunei and Sulu by a German businessman and adventurer named Baron von Overbeck, before it was passed to the British Dent brothers (comprising Alfred Dent and Edward Dent). Further expansion by the British continued into the Borneo interior. This led the 26th sultan of Brunei, Hashim Jalilul Alam Aqamaddin to appeal the British to halt such efforts, and as a result a Treaty of Protection was signed in 1888, rendering Brunei a British protectorate.


title: Borneo

text: Before the acquisition by the British, the Americans also managed to establish their temporary presence in northwestern Borneo after acquiring a parcel of land from the Sultanate of Brunei. A company known as American Trading Company of Borneo was formed by Joseph William Torrey, Thomas Bradley Harris and several Chinese investors, establishing a colony named "Ellena" in the Kimanis area. The colony failed and was abandoned, due to denials of financial backing, especially by the US government, and to diseases and riots among the workers. Before Torrey left, he managed to sell the land to the German businessman, Overbeck. Meanwhile, the Germans under William Frederick Schuck were awarded a parcel of land in northeastern Borneo of the Sandakan Bay from the Sultanate of Sulu where he conducted business and exported large quantities of arms, opium, textiles and tobacco to Sulu before the land was also passed to Overbeck by the sultanate.


title: Borneo

text: Prior to the recognition of Spanish presence in the Philippine archipelago, a protocol known as the Madrid Protocol of 1885 was signed between the governments of the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain in Madrid to cement Spanish influence and recognise their sovereignty over the Sultanate of Sulu—in return for Spain's relinquishing its claim to the former possessions of the sultanate in northern Borneo. The British administration then established the first railway network in northern Borneo, known as the North Borneo Railway. During this time, the British sponsored a large number of Chinese workers to migrate to northern Borneo to work in European plantation and mines, and the Dutch followed suit to increase their economic production. By 1888, North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei in northern Borneo had become British protectorate. The area in southern Borneo was made Dutch protectorate in 1891. The Dutch who already claimed the whole Borneo were asked by Britain to delimit their boundaries between the two colonial territories to avoid further conflicts. The British and Dutch governments had signed the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 to exchange trading ports in Malay Peninsula and Sumatra that were under their controls and assert spheres of influence. This resulted in indirectly establishing British- and Dutch-controlled areas in the north (Malay Peninsula) and south (Sumatra and Riau Islands) respectively.


title: Borneo

text: In 1895, Marcus Samuel received a concession in the Kutei area of east Borneo, and based on oil seepages in the Mahakam River delta, Mark Abrahams struck oil in February 1897. This was the discovery of the Sanga Sanga Oil Field, a refinery was built in Balikpapan, and discovery of the Samboja Oil Field followed in 1909. In 1901, the Pamusian Oil Field was discovered on Tarakan, and the Bunyu Oil Field in 1929. Royal Dutch Shell discovered the Miri Oil Field in 1910, and the Seria oil field in 1929.


title: Borneo

text: During World War II, Japanese forces gained control and occupied most areas of Borneo from 1941 to 1945. In the first stage of the war, the British saw the Japanese advance to Borneo as motivated by political and territorial ambitions rather than economic factors. The occupation drove many people in the coastal towns to the interior, searching for food and escaping the Japanese. The Chinese residents in Borneo, especially with the Sino-Japanese War in Mainland China mostly resisted the Japanese occupation. Following the formation of resistance movements in northern Borneo such as the Jesselton Revolt, many innocent indigenous and Chinese people were executed by the Japanese for their alleged involvement.


title: Borneo

text: In Kalimantan, the Japanese also killed many Malay intellectuals, executing all the Malay sultans of West Kalimantan in the Pontianak incidents, together with Chinese people who were already against the Japanese for suspecting them to be threats. Sultan Muhammad Ibrahim Shafi ud-din II of Sambas was executed in 1944. The sultanate was thereafter suspended and replaced by a Japanese council. The Japanese also set-up "Pusat Tenaga Rakjat" (PUTERA) in the Indonesian archipelago in 1943, although it was abolished the following year when it became too nationalistic. Some of the Indonesian nationalist like Sukarno and Hatta who had returned from Dutch exile began to co-operate with the Japanese. Shortly after his release, Sukarno became president of the Central Advisory Council, an advisory council for south Borneo, Celebes, and Lesser Sunda, set up in February 1945.


title: Borneo

text: Since the fall of Singapore, the Japanese sent several thousand of British and Australian prisoners of war to camps in Borneo such as Batu Lintang camp. From the Sandakan camp site, only six of some 2,500 prisoners survived after they were forced to march in an event known as the Sandakan Death March. In addition, of the total of 17,488 Javanese labourers brought in by the Japanese during the occupation, only 1,500 survived mainly due to starvation, harsh working conditions and maltreatment. The Dayak and other indigenous people played a role in guerrilla warfare against the occupying forces, particularly in the Kapit Division. They temporarily revived headhunting of Japanese toward the end of the war, with Allied Z Special Unit provided assistance to them. Australia contributed significantly to the liberation of Borneo. The Australian Imperial Force was sent to Borneo to fight off the Japanese. Together with other Allies, the island was completely liberated in 1945.


title: Borneo

text: In May 1945, officials in Tokyo suggested that whether northern Borneo should be included in the proposed new country of Indonesia should be separately determined based on the desires of its indigenous people and following the disposition of Malaya. Sukarno and Mohammad Yamin meanwhile continuously advocated for a Greater Indonesian republic. Towards the end of the war, Japan decided to give an early independence to a new proposed country of Indonesia on 17 July 1945, with an Independence Committee meeting scheduled for 19 August 1945. However, following the surrender of Japan to the Allied forces, the meeting was shelved. Sukarno and Hatta continued the plan by unilaterally declaring independence, although the Dutch tried to retake their colonial possession in Borneo. The southern part of the island achieved its independence through the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence on 17 August 1945. The southern part saw guerilla conflicts followed by Dutch blockade to cut supplies for nationalist within the region. While nationalist guerrillas supporting the inclusion of southern Borneo in the new Indonesian republic were active in Ketapang, and to lesser extent in Sambas where they rallied with the red-white flag which became the flag of Indonesia, most of the Chinese residents in southern Borneo expected to be liberated by Chinese Nationalist troops from mainland China and to integrate their districts as an overseas province of China. Meanwhile, Sarawak and Sabah in northern Borneo became separate British crown colonies in 1946.


title: Borneo

text: In 1961, Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman of the independent Federation of Malaya desired to unite Malaya, the British colonies of Sarawak, North Borneo, Singapore and the protectorate of Brunei under the proposed Federation of Malaysia. The idea was heavily opposed by the governments in both Indonesia and the Philippines as well from communist sympathisers and nationalists in Borneo. Sukarno, as the president of the new republic, perceiving the British trying to maintain their presence in northern Borneo and the Malay Peninsula, decided to launch a military infiltration, later known as the "confrontation", from 1962 to 1969. As a response to the growing opposition, the British deployed their armed forces to guard their colonies against Indonesian and communist revolts, which was also participated by Australia and New Zealand.


title: Borneo

text: The Philippines opposed the newly proposed federation, claiming the eastern part of North Borneo (today the Malaysian state of Sabah) as part of its territory as a former possession of the Sultanate of Sulu. The Philippine government mostly based their claim on the Sultanate of Sulu's cession agreement with the British North Borneo Company, as by now the sultanate had come under the jurisdiction of the Philippine republican administration, which therefore should inherit the Sulu former territories. The Philippine government also claimed that the heirs of the sultanate had ceded all their territorial rights to the republic.


title: Borneo

text: The Sultanate of Brunei at the first welcomed the proposal of a new larger federation. Meanwhile, the Brunei People's Party led by A.M. Azahari desired to reunify Brunei, Sarawak and North Borneo into one federation known as the North Borneo Federation (), where the sultan of Brunei would be the head of state for the federation—though Azahari had his own intention to abolish the Brunei monarchy, to make Brunei more democratic, and to integrate the territory and other former British colonies in Borneo into Indonesia, with the support from the latter government. This directly led to the Brunei Revolt, which thwarted Azahari's attempt and forced him to escape to Indonesia. Brunei withdrew from being part of the new Federation of Malaysia due to some disagreements on other issues while political leaders in Sarawak and North Borneo continued to favour inclusion in a larger federation.


title: Borneo

text: With the continuous opposition from Indonesia and the Philippines, the Cobbold Commission was established to discover the feeling of the native populations in northern Borneo; it found the people greatly in favour of federation, with various stipulations. The federation was successfully achieved with the inclusion of northern Borneo through the Malaysia Agreement on 16 September 1963. To this day, the area in northern Borneo is still subjected to attacks by Moro pirates since the 18th century and militant from groups such as Abu Sayyaf since 2000 in the frequent cross border attacks. During the administration of Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, Marcos made some attempts to destabilise the state of Sabah, although his plan failed and resulted in the Jabidah massacre and later the insurgency in the southern Philippines.


title: Borneo

text: In August 2019, Indonesian president Joko Widodo announced a plan to move the capital of Indonesia from Jakarta to a newly established location in the East Kalimantan province in Borneo.


title: Borneo

text: Borneo had 23,053,723 inhabitants (in 2020 Censuses), a population density of . Most of the population lives in coastal cities, although the hinterland has small towns and villages along the rivers. The population consists mainly of Dayak ethnic groups, Malay, Banjar, Ida'an, Bajau, Suluk, Orang Ulu, Chinese and Kadazan-Dusun. The Chinese, who make up 29% of the population of Sarawak and 17% of total population in West Kalimantan, Indonesia are descendants of immigrants primarily from southeastern China.


title: Borneo

text: In Sabah, during the administration of Mustapha Harun of the United Sabah National Organisation (USNO) in the 1970s, thousands of Muslim immigrants and refugees from the southern Philippines island of Mindanao and the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia were given sanctuary and later identity cards in a bid to increase the Muslim population of the state: a policy later known as Project IC. Due to the high number of crimes attributed to the new migrant populations, ethnic tension between the indigenous and migrant populations has risen up to the present.


title: Borneo

text: In Kalimantan, since the 1990s, the Indonesian government has undertaken an intense transmigration program; to that end it has financed the relocation of poor, landless families from Java, Madura, and Bali. By 2001, transmigrants made up 21% of the population in Central Kalimantan. Since the 1990s, the indigenous Dayak and Malays have resisted encroachment by these migrants, and violent conflict has occurred between some transmigrant and indigenous populations. In the 1999 Sambas riots, Dayaks and Malays joined to massacre thousands of the Madurese migrants. In Kalimantan, thousands were killed in 2001 fighting between Madurese transmigrants and the Dayak people in the Sampit conflict.


title: Borneo

text: Borneo's economy depends mainly on agriculture, logging and mining, oil and gas, and ecotourism. Brunei's economy is highly dependent on the oil and gas production sector, and the country has become one of the largest oil producers in Southeast Asia. The Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak are both top exporters of timber. Sabah is also known as the agricultural producer of rubber, cacao, and vegetables, and for its fisheries, while Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan export liquefied natural gas (LNG) and petroleum. The Indonesian provinces of Kalimantan are mostly dependent on mining sectors despite also being involved in logging and oil and gas explorations.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), formerly known as Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), is a multinational video game and digital entertainment company wholly owned by multinational conglomerate Sony. The SIE Group is made up of two legal corporate entities: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (SIE LLC) based in San Mateo, California, United States, and Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. (SIE Inc.), based in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo-based SIE Inc. was originally founded as Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI or SCE) in November 1993 to handle Sony's venture into video game development for the PlayStation systems. SIE LLC was established in San Mateo in April 2016, and is managed through Sony's American branch, Sony Corporation of America.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: Since the launch of the original PlayStation console in 1994, the company has been developing PlayStation home video game consoles, accessories and services. The company expanded from Japan into North America and Europe, where it founded the branches Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) in May 1995 (in Foster City, California) and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) in July 1995 (in Liverpool). The company quickly became Sony's main resource for research and development in video games and interactive entertainment. In April 2016, SCE and Sony Network Entertainment International was restructured and reorganized into Sony Interactive Entertainment, carrying over the operations and primary objectives from both companies. The same year, SIE LLC was established, with its headquarters in San Mateo, California.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: Sony Interactive Entertainment handles the research and development, production, and sales of both hardware and software for the PlayStation video game systems. SIE is also a developer and publisher of video game titles, and operates several subsidiaries in Sony's largest markets: North America, Europe and Asia. By June 2022, the company had sold more than 581 million PlayStation consoles worldwide.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. (SCEI) was jointly established by Sony and its subsidiary Sony Music Entertainment Japan in 1993 to handle the company's ventures into the video game industry. The original PlayStation console was released on December 3, 1994, in Japan. The company's North American operations, Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA), were originally established in May 1995 as a division of Sony Electronic Publishing. Located in Foster City, California, the North American office was originally headed by Steve Race.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: In the months prior to the release of the PlayStation in Western markets, the operations were restructured: All video game marketing from Sony Imagesoft was folded into SCEA in July 1995, with most affected employees transferred from Santa Monica to Foster City. On August 7, 1995, Race unexpectedly resigned and was named CEO of Spectrum HoloByte three days later. He was replaced by Sony Electronics veteran Martin Homlish. This proved to be the beginning of a run of exceptional managerial turnover, with SCEA going through four presidents in a single year. The PS console was released in the United States on September 9, 1995. As part of a worldwide restructuring at the beginning of 1997, SCEA and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) were both re-established as wholly owned subsidiaries of SCEI.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The launch of the second PS console, the PlayStation 2 was released in Japan on March 4, 2000, and the U.S. on October 26, 2000. On July 1, 2002, chairman of SCEI, Shigeo Maruyama, was replaced by Tamotsu Iba as chairman. Jack Tretton and Phil Harrison were also promoted to senior vice presidents of SCE. The PlayStation Portable (PSP) was SCEI's first foray into the small handheld console market. Its development was first announced during SCE's E3 conference in 2003, and it was officially unveiled during their E3 conference on May 11, 2004. The system was released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in Europe and Australia on September 1, 2005.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On September 14, 2005, SCEI formed SCE Worldwide Studios, a single internal entity to oversee all wholly-owned development studios within SCEI. It became responsible for the creative and strategic direction of development and production of all computer entertainment software by all SCEI-owned studios—all software is produced exclusively for the PS family of consoles. Shuhei Yoshida was named as president of Worldwide Studios on May 16, 2008, replacing Kazuo Hirai, who was serving interim after Harrison left the company in early 2008.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On December 8, 2005, video game developer Guerrilla Games, developers of the "Killzone" series, was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment as part of Worldwide Studios. On January 24, 2006, video game developer Zipper Interactive, developers of the "Socom" series, was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment as part of Worldwide Studios.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: In March 2006, Sony announced the online network for its forthcoming PlayStation 3 (PS3) system at the 2006 PlayStation Business Briefing meeting in Tokyo, Japan, tentatively named "PlayStation Network Platform" and eventually called just PlayStation Network (PSN). Sony also stated that the service would always be connected, free, and include multiplayer support.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The launch date for the PS3 was announced by Hirai at the pre-E3 conference held at the Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California, on May 8, 2006. The PS3 was released in Japan on November 11, 2006, and the U.S. date was November 17, 2006. The PSN was also launched in November 2006.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On November 30, 2006, president of SCEI, Ken Kutaragi, was appointed as chairman of SCEI, while Hirai, then president of SCEA, was promoted to president of SCEI. On April 26, 2007, Ken Kutaragi resigned from his position as chairman of SCEI and group CEO, passing on his duties to the recently appointed president of SCE, Hirai.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On September 20, 2007, video game developers Evolution Studios and Bigbig Studios, creators of the MotorStorm series, were acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment as part of Worldwide Studios.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On April 15, 2009, David Reeves, president and CEO of SCE Europe, announced his forthcoming resignation from his post. He had joined the company in 1995 and was appointed as chairman of SCEE in 2003, and then president in 2005. His role of president and CEO of SCEE would be taken over by Andrew House, who joined Sony Corporation in 1990. The PSP Go was released on October 1, 2009, for North America and Europe, and on November 1, 2009, for Japan.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On April 1, 2010, SCEI was restructured to bring together Sony's mobile electronics and personal computers divisions. The main Japanese division of SCEI was temporarily renamed "SNE Platform Inc." (SNEP) on April 1, 2010, and was split into two divisions that focused on different aspects: "Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc.", consisting of 1,300 employees who focused on the console business, and the network service business consisting of 60 to 70 employees. The network service business of SCEI was absorbed into Sony Corp's Network Products & Service Group (NPSG), which had already been headed by Hirai since April 2009. The original SCEI was then dissolved after the restructuring.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The North American and European branches of SCEI were affected by the restructuring, and remained as SCEA and SCEE. Hirai, by that time SCEI CEO and Sony Corporation EVP, led both departments.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On March 2, 2010, video game developer Media Molecule, developers of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) game LittleBigPlanet, was acquired by SCEI as part of Worldwide Studios. On August 23, 2010, the headquarters of the company moved from Minami-Aoyama to the (Sony Corporation's headquarters) in Kōnan, Minato, Tokyo. On April 20, 2011, SCEI was the victim of an attack on its PlayStation Network system, which also affected its online division, Sony Online Entertainment. On August 1, 2011, video game developer Sucker Punch Productions, developers of the Sly Cooper and Infamous series, was also acquired.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: In January 2012, BigBig Studios was closed and Cambridge Studio—renamed Guerrilla Cambridge—becoming a sister studio of Guerrilla Games. In March 2012, Zipper Interactive, developers of the "SOCOM" series, "MAG" and "Unit 13", was closed. On June 25, 2012, Hirai retired as chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment; however, he remains on the board of directors.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On July 2, 2012, Sony Computer Entertainment acquired Gaikai, a cloud-based gaming service. In August 2012, Studio Liverpool, developer of the "Wipeout" and "Formula One" series, was closed. In August 2012, Sony Computer Entertainment announced PlayStation Mobile for Vita and PlayStation certified devices, with a developers such has THQ, Team17 and Action Button Entertainment signed up.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: A press release was published on August 20, 2013, announcing the release date of the PlayStation 4 (PS4) console. On that date, SCEI introduced the CUH-1000A series system, and announced the launch date as November 15, 2013, for North American markets and November 29, 2013, for European, Australasian and Central and South American markets.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: Following a January 2014 announcement by the Chinese government that the country's 14-year game console ban would be lifted, the PS4 was scheduled to be the first Sony video game console to be officially and legally released in China since the PlayStation 2.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On March 6, 2014, Sony Computer Entertainment of America President and CEO, Tretton, announced he was resigning from his position at the end of the month, citing a mutual agreement between himself and SCEA for the cessation of his contract. Tretton had worked at SCEA since 1995 and was a founding member of the company's executive team. He was involved in the launch of all PlayStation platforms in North America, including the original PlayStation, PS2, PSP, PS3, PSN, PS Vita, and PS4. Tretton was replaced by Shawn Layden, who was the vice-president and chief operating officer (COO) of Sony Network Entertainment International, effective April 1, 2014. On April 2, 2015, it was announced that Sony Computer Entertainment had acquired the intellectual property of the cloud gaming service OnLive, and that its services would cease by the end of the month.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The beta version of Sony's first-ever cloud-based television service, PlayStation Vue (PSVue), was launched in the U.S. in November 2014. It was only offered on an invite-only basis for PS3 and PS4 users, prior to its official launch in early 2015. Sony signed deals with major networks, including CBS, Discovery, Fox, and Viacom, so that users can view live streaming video, as well as catch up and on-demand content, from more than 75 channels, such as Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. Although pricing and release dates for other regions was not publicized, Sony confirmed that PSVue will eventually be available on iPad, followed by other Sony and non-Sony devices.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On January 26, 2016, Sony announced that effective April 1, 2016, Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment International would be re-organized and combined into a new company, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE). Unlike the former SCE, SIE is based in San Mateo, California, and represents the entire PlayStation brand, regional subsidiaries, and its content operations. On March 24, 2016, Sony announced the establishment of ForwardWorks, a new studio dedicated to producing "full-fledged" games based on Sony intellectual properties for mobile platforms such as smartphones.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: It was reported in December 2016 by multiple news outlets that Sony was considering restructuring its U.S. operations by merging its TV and film business with SIE. According to the reports, such a restructuring would have placed Sony Pictures under Sony Interactive's CEO, Andrew House, though House wouldn't have taken over day-to-day operations of the film studio. According to one report, Sony was set to make a final decision on the possibility of the merger of the TV, film, and gaming businesses by the end of its fiscal year in March of the following year (2017). However, judging by Sony's activity in 2017, the rumored merger never materialized.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On January 8, 2019, Sony announced that the company had entered into a definitive agreement for Sony Interactive Entertainment to acquire Audiokinetic.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On March 20, 2019, Sony Interactive Entertainment launched the educational video game platform toio in Japan.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On May 20, 2019, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that the company had launched PlayStation Productions, a production studio that will mine the company's extensive catalogue of video game titles for film and television. The new venture is headed by Asad Qizilbash and overseen by Shawn Layden, chairman of Worldwide Studios.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On August 19, 2019, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that the company had entered into definitive agreements to acquire Insomniac Games. The acquisition was completed on November 15, 2019, where Sony paid ¥24,895 million (US$229 million) in cash.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On November 8, 2019, Gobind Singh Deo, Malaysia's Minister of Communications and Multimedia, announced that Sony Interactive Entertainment would open a new development office in the country as in 2020 to provide art and animation as part of Worldwide Studios' efforts to make exclusive games for PlayStation consoles. The studio will be Sony Interactive Entertainment's first studio in Southeast Asia.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: SIE announced the formation of PlayStation Studios in May 2020 to be formally introduced alongside the PlayStation 5 later in 2020. PlayStation Studios will serve as an umbrella organization for its first-party game development studios, including Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Santa Monica Studio, Media Molecule and Guerrilla Games, as well as used for branding on games developed by studios brought in by Sony in work-for-hire situations. Sony plans to use the "PlayStation Studios" branding on both PlayStation 5 and new PlayStation 4 games to help with consumer recognition, though the branding was not ready for some of Sony's mid-2020 releases like "The Last of Us Part II".


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: SIE's parent Sony bought a minority stake in Epic Games for $250 million in July 2020, giving the company about a 1.4% stake in Epic. The investment came after Sony helped with Epic's development of new technologies in its Unreal Engine 5, which it was positioning for use in powering games on the upcoming PlayStation 5 to take advantage of its high speed internal storage solutions for in-game streaming.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: In March 2021, SIE announced that it and RTS acquired the assets and properties of the Evolution Championship Series as a joint venture.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On April 13, 2021, Epic Games announced that it received an additional $200 million strategic investment from SIE's parent Sony Group Corporation.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On May 3, 2021, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced the acquisition of a minority stake in Discord, which will be integrated into the PlayStation Network by early 2022.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On July 1, 2021, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced the acquisition of Nixxes Software. Jim Ryan said later that month that they plan to work with Nixxes to release more of their PlayStation games to personal computers.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On September 8, 2021, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced the acquisition of Firesprite, a Liverpool-based developer with over 250 employees. The studio has multiple projects in development, with the projects focusing on genres outside the core offerings of PlayStation Studios. On September 29, 2021, Firesprite announced that it had acquired Fabrik Games, bringing the studio's headcount to 265.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On September 30, 2021, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that Bluepoint Games had joined PlayStation Studios, with Bluepoint working on original content instead of remaking an older game.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On November 4, 2021, Sony Interactive Entertainment acquired a 5% stake in the video game publisher Devolver Digital.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On December 10, 2021, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced the acquisition of the Seattle-based studio Valkyrie Entertainment.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: Sony Interactive Entertainment announced its intent to purchase Bungie for $3.6 billion in January 2022. This deal closed on July 15, 2022. Under terms of this deal, Bungie remained an independent development studio and publisher, allowing Bungie to pursue development outside Sony's platforms, and was intended to help bolster live service games for SIE.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: Sony Interactive Entertainment acquired Jade Raymond's Haven Studios in March 2022 and incorporating it as part of PlayStation Studios, making the studio Sony's first development team in Canada.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On July 18, 2022, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Repeat.gg announced that Sony Interactive Entertainment had acquired Repeat.gg.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On August 29, 2022, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Savege Game Studios announced that Sony Interactive Entertainment had acquired Savege Game Studios, a mobile game development studio with offices in Helsinki and Berlin. Savage Game Studios joined the newly created PlayStation Studios Mobile Division, an independent operation from console development.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On August 31, 2022, it was announced that Sony Interactive Entertainment has acquired a 14.09% stake in FromSoftware.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The president, and CEO of SIE is Jim Ryan, replacing John (Tsuyoshi) Kodera, who stepped down in April 2019. Kodera would leave SIE in 2021. Andrew House served as president and CEO from 2011 until October 2017, after stepping down from the role House served as chairman until the end of the year. House replaced Kaz Hirai as president and CEO in 2011, who himself had replaced longtime CEO Ken Kutaragi, also known as the "Father of the PlayStation". Kutaragi retired from his executive position at SIE on June 19, 2007, and holds the title of honorary chairman at the company. As of November 7, 2019, Hermen Hulst is the Head of Worldwide Studios.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: SIE currently has eight main headquarters around the world: the global and regional headquarters for the North America and Latin American (except Cuba and the Caribbean countries) countries in San Mateo, California (Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC); Minato, Tokyo, Japan (Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. and Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Asia) which control operations in Japan and was also formerly the headquarters for (Sony Computer Entertainment); Seoul, South Korea (Sony Interactive Entertainment Korea) for the South Korean operations and London, England (Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe) which controls operations in Europe (Turkey included and except Russia, Belarus and Baltic countries), South Africa, Middle East (except Egypt and Turkey), India, Australia and New Zealand whereas Singapore (Sony Interactive Entertainment Singapore) operates throughout Southeast Asia; Taipei, Taiwan (Sony Interactive Entertainment Taiwan) for the Taiwanese operations and Shanghai, China (Sony Interactive Entertainment Shanghai) controls its operations in the mainland China; Hong Kong (Sony Interactive Entertainment Hong Kong) will serve the operations around Hong Kong and Macau, previously served for operations in the (Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan).


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: SIE also has smaller offices and distribution centers in Los Angeles, California (Hollywood), San Diego, California; Toronto, Ontario; Melbourne, Australia; Seoul, South Korea "(Seocho-gu)", Singapore; Shanghai, China and Liverpool, England.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: SIE evaluates and approves games for its consoles. The process is more strict than for the Nintendo Seal of Quality, and developers submit game concepts to Sony early in the design process. Each SIE unit has its own evaluation process; SIEE, for example, approved "Billy the Wizard" for its consumers but SIEA did not. The company sometimes imposes additional restrictions, such as when it prohibited PS and PS2 games from being ported to the PSP without 30% of content being new to the Sony console.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: SCEI produces the PlayStation line of video game hardware that consists of consoles and handhelds. Sony's first wide home console release, the PlayStation (codenamed "PSX" during development), was initially designed to be a CD-ROM drive add-on for Nintendo's Super NES (a.k.a. "Super Famicom" in Japan) video game console, in response to add-ons for competing platforms such as the TurboGrafx-CD and the Sega CD (sold as the PC Engine CD-ROM² System and Mega CD in Japan respectively). When the prospect of releasing the system as an add-on dissolved, Sony redesigned the machine into a standalone unit.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The PlayStation was released in Japan on December 3, 1994, and later in North America on September 9, 1995. By the end of the console 12-year production cycle, the PlayStation had sold 102 million units.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: SCEI's second home console, the PlayStation 2 (PS2) was released in Japan on March 4, 2000, and later in North America and Europe in October and November 2000, respectively. The PS2 is powered by a proprietary central processing unit, the Emotion Engine, and was the first video game console to have DVD playback functionality and also backwards compatibility with the original PlayStation games included out of the box.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The PS2 consisted of a DVD drive and retailed in the U.S. for US$299. SCEI received heavy criticism after the launch of the PS2 due to the games released as part of the launch, difficulties that it presented for video game designers, and users who struggled to port Sega Dreamcast games to the system. However, despite these complaints, the PlayStation 2 received widespread support from third party developers throughout its lifespan on the market.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: On December 28, 2012, Sony confirmed that it would cease production of the PS2 through a gradual process that started in Japan—the continuing popularity of the console in markets like Brazil and India meant that PS2 products would still be shipped, while games for the console were released in March 2013. The PS2 stands as the best-selling home video game console in history, with a total of 155 million consoles sold.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: Writing for the ExtremeTech website at the end of 2012, James Plafke described the PS2 as revolutionary and proclaimed that the console "turn[ed] the gaming industry on its head":


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: Aside from being the “first” next-gen console, as well as providing many, many people with their first DVD player, the PlayStation 2 launched in something of a Golden Age of the non-PC gaming industry. Gaming tech was becoming extremely sophisticated ... Sony seemingly knew the exact route toward popularity, turning the console with the least powerful hardware of that generation into a juggernaut of success.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The PlayStation Portable (PSP) was SCEI's first foray into the small handheld console market. Its development was first announced during SCE's E3 conference in 2003, and it was officially unveiled during their E3 conference on May 11, 2004. The system was released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in Europe and Australia on September 1, 2005. The console has since seen two major redesigns, with new features including smaller size, more internal memory, a better quality LCD screen and lighter weight.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The launch date for the PS3 was announced by Hirai at the pre-E3 conference held at Sony Pictures Studios in Los Angeles, California, on May 8, 2006. The PS3 was released in Japan on November 11, 2006, and the U.S. date was November 17, 2006. Technology journalists observed that Sony had followed what Microsoft did with the Xbox 360, and produced the PS3 in two versions: one with a 20GB hard drive and the other with a 60GB hard drive.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The PS3 utilizes a unique processing architecture, the Cell microprocessor, a proprietary technology developed by Sony in conjunction with Toshiba and IBM. The graphics processing unit, the RSX 'Reality Synthesizer', was co-developed by Nvidia and Sony. Several variations of the PS3 have been released, each with slight hardware and software differences, and each denoted by the varying size of the included hard disk drive.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The PS Vita is the successor to the PlayStation Portable. It was released in Japan and other parts of Asia on December 17, 2011, and then in Europe, Australia and North America on February 22, 2012.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: Internally, the Vita features a 4-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor and a 4-core SGX543MP4+ graphics processing unit, as well as LiveArea software as its main user interface, which succeeds the XrossMediaBar.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The PS4 was announced as the successor to the PS3 and was launched in North America on November 15, 2013, in Europe on November 29, 2013 and in Japan on February 23, 2014.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: Described by Sony as a "next generation" console, the PS4 included features such as enhanced social capabilities, second-screen options involving devices like the handheld PlayStation Vita, a membership service and compatibility with the Twitch live streaming platform.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: Following a January 2014 announcement by the Chinese government that the country's 14-year game console ban would be lifted, the PS4 was scheduled to be the first Sony video game console to be officially and legally released in China since the PlayStation 2—the ban was enacted in 2000 to protect the mental health of young people. Around 70 game developers, including Ubisoft and Koei, will service Chinese PlayStation users.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The Chinese release dates and price details were announced in early December, with January 11, 2015, confirmed by SCEI. The makers announced that both the PS4 and Vita consoles will be released in China, and the former's package will also consist of a 500GB and 1TB hard drive and controller.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The 20th anniversary of the original PS console was celebrated on December 6, 2014, with the release of a limited-edition, anniversary-edition PlayStation 4 with an aesthetic design that recalled the original 1994 PlayStation.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: The PS5 was announced to succeed the PS4 in 2019, and released in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North America, and South Korea on November 12, 2020, with a further worldwide release on November 19, 2020.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: SIE maintains several in-house studios since 2005, with the most recent move to brand these as PlayStation Studios starting in 2020. All of these studios develop PlayStation console-exclusive games for Sony.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: In addition to those listed below, Bungie operates as an independent studio and publisher under SIE since July 2022.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: SIE began releasing some of its first-party studios' exclusive titles for Microsoft Windows in 2020, starting with "" in August 2020, and with "Days Gone" in May 2021. Layden said in a 2021 interview that he was part of the team that came up with this concept, where they recognized "we need to go out to where these new customers are, where these new fans could be. We need to go to where they are... Because they've decided not to come to my house, so I've got to go their house now. And what's the best way to go to their house? Why not take one of our top-selling games?" Ryan said in an interview that with some of the latter PlayStation 4 titles that "There’s an opportunity to expose those great games to a wider audience" and that "Horizon: Zero Dawn" release on Windows shows there was a strong interest in further releases. An investor report in 2021 stated that a primary factor in SIE's recent desire to expand into PC gaming under Ryan stems from the motivation to expand the PlayStation brand into China, Russia and India—markets where console-oriented gaming is far less prevalent than in the West and Japan. In June 2021 after acquiring the studio Nixxes which had become their go-to developer for these ports, Sony confirmed that they are dedicated to PC gaming and value PC gamers, although the PlayStation consoles will still be the "first" and "best" places to play their games. Subsequent Windows releases included 2018's "God of War" in January 2022, "Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered" in August 2022, the "" collection and "" in October 2022, "" in November 2022, "The Last of Us Part I" in March 2023, and "Returnal" in early 2023.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: "Video Games Chronicle" observed that Sony had established a PlayStation PC label around April 2021 to handle the publication of its games on Windows. SIE stated in a May 2022 investor report that sales of PC ports of their games had grown from in their 2020 fiscal year, to in 2021, and estimated to be for 2022. Because of this, SIE plans to continue to support PC releases of their PlayStation exclusive games and anticipate that by 2025, a third of their games revenue will come from PC sales.


title: Sony Interactive Entertainment

text: SIE also began seeking the mobile games market, hiring a former content manager for Apple Arcade in 2020, as a means to bring their IPs to this platform. SIE acquired Savage Game Studios as their first dedicated mobile developer within PlayStation Studios in August 2022 for an undisclosed sum. It expects that by 2025, mobile games will make up 20% of their games revenue.


title: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

text: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (; born July 15, 1986) is an American actor. He portrayed Black Manta in the DC Extended Universe "Aquaman" films and Bobby Seale in the Netflix historical legal drama "The Trial of the Chicago 7". For his portrayal of Cal Abar in the HBO limited series "Watchmen", he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. He also starred in an episode of "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Black Mirror".


title: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

text: Abdul-Mateen was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to a Muslim convert father, Yahya Abdul-Mateen I (1945–2007), and a Christian mother, Mary. He is the youngest of six children. He spent his childhood in the Magnolia Projects of New Orleans, and then moved to Oakland, California, where he attended McClymonds High School. At McClymonds, he was an athlete (he played against future NFL champion Marshawn Lynch) and self-described geek who enjoyed chess. He was also prom king. The family was eventually priced out of Oakland and moved to Stockton, California.


title: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

text: During his time at the University of California, Berkeley, where Mateen became initiated as a member of Alpha Phi Alpha and competed as a hurdler for the California Golden Bears, a teammate suggested he take a theater class; that class helped him overcome his stutter. He graduated with a degree in architecture, and then worked as a city planner in San Francisco. After being laid off from his job, he used the opportunity to apply to drama schools, in which he was accepted by New York University Tisch School of the Arts, the Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University, and Yale School of Drama; he graduated from Yale with a Master of Fine Arts degree and worked as a stage actor.


title: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

text: Early in his career, Abdul-Mateen was adamant about not altering his Muslim name or using a stage name, countering the implications that having a Muslim name would impede his success. In 2016, Abdul-Mateen began his acting career with Stephen Adly Guirgis and Baz Luhrmann's musical drama series "The Get Down", which premiered on Netflix. His character Clarence "Cadillac" Caldwell is a prince of the disco world. He was praised for his performance in the series.


title: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

text: In 2017, Abdul-Mateen appeared in Shawn Christensen's drama film "The Vanishing of Sidney Hall," in the role of Duane. It premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.


title: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

text: Abdul-Mateen played a police officer, Garner Ellerbee, in the action comedy film "Baywatch" along with Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron, and directed by Seth Gordon. The film was released on May 25, 2017. He also played WD Wheeler, a smart hand-to-hand acrobat partner, in the musical film "The Greatest Showman" (2017), which also starred Efron, as well as with Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, and Zendaya, about American showman P.T. Barnum.


title: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

text: In 2018, he starred in the road trip drama film "Boundaries", along with Vera Farmiga and Christopher Plummer, directed and written by Shana Feste; and played DC Comics villain Black Manta in the film "Aquaman," which started shooting in May 2017 in Australia. In 2018, Abdul-Mateen was cast in a flashback part as the main character's father in the horror film "Us", directed by Jordan Peele, which was released in March 2019.


title: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

text: In February 2019, it was confirmed that Abdul-Mateen was in talks to star in the Jordan Peele-produced "Candyman" reboot as the title character, with Nia DaCosta directing. The film was released in theaters on August 27, 2021, to positive reviews.


title: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

text: In March 2019, it was announced that Abdul-Mateen was cast in the fifth season of Netflix's science-fiction anthology series "Black Mirror". Later in the year, he played Cal Abar, known as Doctor Manhattan, in the HBO superhero drama miniseries "Watchmen", which earned him his first Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or a Special in September 2020.


title: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

text: Abdul-Mateen starred in the role of Morpheus (an alternate version of the character) in the film "The Matrix Resurrections".


title: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

text: Abdul-Mateen is currently starring in the Broadway revival of Topdog/Underdog alongside Corey Hawkins.


title: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

text: In October 2022, it was announced that Abdul-Mateen was cast in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Disney+ series "Wonder Man" as the titular character.


title: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

text: Abdul-Mateen lives in New York City. After his father's death in 2007, Abdul-Mateen began researching his family history, explaining that "My father grew up and passed away with the longing to know where his father was from and about his father’s history." His father had West Indian heritage, although the country of origin is unknown.


title: Peafowl

text: Peafowl is a common name for three bird species in the genera "Pavo" and "Afropavo" within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae, the pheasants and their allies. Male peafowl are referred to as peacocks, and female peafowl are referred to as peahens, even though peafowl of either sex are often referred to colloquially as "peacocks".


title: Peafowl

text: The two Asiatic species are the blue or Indian peafowl originally of the Indian subcontinent, and the green peafowl of Southeast Asia; the one African species is the Congo peafowl, native only to the Congo Basin. Male peafowl are known for their piercing calls and their extravagant plumage. The latter is especially prominent in the Asiatic species, which have an eye-spotted "tail" or "train" of covert feathers, which they display as part of a courtship ritual.


title: Peafowl

text: The functions of the elaborate iridescent colouration and large "train" of peacocks have been the subject of extensive scientific debate. Charles Darwin suggested that they served to attract females, and the showy features of the males had evolved by sexual selection. More recently, Amotz Zahavi proposed in his handicap theory that these features acted as honest signals of the males' fitness, since less-fit males would be disadvantaged by the difficulty of surviving with such large and conspicuous structures.


title: Peafowl

text: The Indian peacock has iridescent blue and green plumage, mostly metallic blue and green, but the green peacock has green and bronze body feathers. In both species, females are a little smaller than males in terms of weight and wingspan, but males are significantly longer due to the "tail", also known as a "train". The peacock train consists not of tail quill feathers, but highly elongated upper tail coverts. These feathers are marked with eyespots, best seen when a peacock fans his tail. Both sexes of all species have a crest atop the head. The Indian peahen has a mixture of dull grey, brown, and green in her plumage. The female also displays her plumage to ward off female competition or signal danger to her young.


title: Peafowl

text: Green peafowl differ from Indian peafowl in that the male has green and gold plumage and black wings with a sheen of blue. Unlike Indian peafowl, the green peahen is similar to the male, but has shorter upper tail coverts, a more coppery neck, and overall less iridescence.


title: Peafowl

text: The Congo peacock male does not display his covert feathers, but uses his actual tail feathers during courtship displays. These feathers are much shorter than those of the Indian and green species, and the ocelli are much less pronounced. Females of the Indian and African species are dull grey and/or brown.


title: Peafowl

text: Chicks of both sexes in all the species are cryptically coloured. They vary between yellow and tawny, usually with patches of darker brown or light tan and "dirty white" ivory.


title: Peafowl

text: Mature peahens have been recorded as suddenly growing typically male peacock plumage and making male calls. While initially gynandromorphism was suspected, researchers have suggested that changes in mature birds are due to a lack of estrogen from old or damaged ovaries, and that male plumage and calls are the default unless hormonally suppressed.


title: Peafowl

text: Hybrids between Indian peafowl and Green peafowl are called "Spaldings", after the first person to successfully hybridise them, Mrs. Keith Spalding. Unlike many hybrids, spaldings are fertile and generally benefit from hybrid vigour; spaldings with a high-green phenotype do much better in cold temperatures than the cold-intolerant green peafowl while still looking like their green parents. Plumage varies between individual spaldings, with some looking far more like green peafowl and some looking far more like blue peafowl, though most visually carry traits of both.


title: Peafowl

text: In addition to the wild-type "blue" colouration, several hundred variations in colour and pattern are recognised as separate morphs of the Indian Blue among peafowl breeders. Pattern variations include solid-wing/black shoulder (the black and brown stripes on the wing are instead one solid colour), pied, white-eye (the ocelli in a male's eye feathers have white spots instead of black), and silver pied (a mostly white bird with small patches of colour). Colour variations include white, purple, Buford bronze, opal, midnight, charcoal, jade, and taupe, as well as the sex-linked colours purple, cameo, peach, and Sonja's Violeta. Additional colour and pattern variations are first approved by the United Peafowl Association to become officially recognised as a morph among breeders. Alternately-coloured peafowl are born differently coloured than wild-type peafowl, and though each colour is recognisable at hatch, their peachick plumage does not necessarily match their adult plumage.


title: Peafowl

text: Occasionally, peafowl appear with white plumage. Although albino peafowl do exist, this is quite rare, and almost all white peafowl are not albinos; they have a genetic condition called leucism, which causes pigment cells to fail to migrate from the neural crest during development. Leucistic peafowl can produce pigment but not deposit the pigment to their feathers, resulting in their blue-grey eye colour and the complete lack of colouration in their plumage. Pied peafowl are affected by partial leucism, where only some pigment cells fail to migrate, resulting in birds that have colour but also have patches absent of all colour; they, too, have blue-grey eyes. By contrast, true albino peafowl would have a complete lack of melanin, resulting in irises that look red or pink. Leucistic peachicks are born yellow and become fully white as they mature.


title: Peafowl

text: As with many birds, vibrant iridescent plumage colours are not primarily pigments, but structural colouration. Optical interference Bragg reflections, based on regular, periodic nanostructures of the barbules (fiber-like components) of the feathers, produce the peacock's colours. More specifically, there are 2D photonic-crystal structures that are within the layers or surface area of those various barbules, which are essentially in charge of the colouration of their feathers. Slight changes to the spacing of these barbules result in different colours. Brown feathers are a mixture of red and blue: one colour is created by the periodic structure and the other is created by a Fabry–Pérot interference peak from reflections from the outer and inner boundaries. Such structural colouration causes the iridescence of the peacock's hues. Color derived from physical structure rather than pigment can vary with viewing angle. Most commonly, during a courtship display, the visiting female peahen will stop directly in front of the male peacock – thus providing her the ability to assess the male at 90° to the surface of the feather. Then, the male will turn and display his feathers about 45° to the right of the sun's azimuth which allows the sunlight to accentuate the iridescence of his train. If the female chooses to interact with the male, he will then turn to face her and shiver his train so as to begin the mating process.


title: Peafowl

text: Charles Darwin suggested in "On the Origin of Species" that the peafowl's plumage had evolved through sexual selection. He expanded upon this in his second book, "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex".


title: Peafowl

text: Sexual selection is the ability of male and female organisms to exert selective forces on each other with regard to mating activity. The strongest driver of sexual selection is gamete size. In general, eggs are bigger than sperm, and females produce fewer gametes than males. This leads to eggs being a bigger investment, so to females being selective about the traits that will be passed on to her offspring by males. The peahen's reproductive success and the likelihood of survival of her chicks is partly dependent on the genotype of the mate. Females generally have more to lose when mating with an inferior male due to her gametes being more costly than the male's.


title: Peafowl

text: Merle Jacobs' food-courtship theory states that peahens are attracted to peacocks for the resemblance of their eye spots to blue berries.


title: Peafowl

text: It has been suggested that a peacock's train, loud call, and fearless behaviour have been formed by natural selection (with or without sexual selection too), and served as an aposematic display to intimidate predators and rivals. This hypothesis is designed to explain Takahashi's findings that in Japan, neither reproductive success nor physical condition correlates with the train's length, symmetry or number of eyespots.


title: Peafowl

text: Multiple hypotheses attempt to explain the evolution of female choice. Some of these suggest direct benefits to females, such as protection, shelter, or nuptial gifts that affect the female's choice of mate. Another hypothesis is that females choose mates with good genes. Males with more exaggerated secondary sexual characteristics, such as bigger, brighter peacock trains, tend to have better genes in the peahen's eyes. These better genes directly benefit her offspring, as well as her fitness and reproductive success. Runaway selection also seeks to clarify the evolution of the peacock's train. In runaway sexual selection, linked genes in males and females code for sexually dimorphic traits in males, and preference for those traits in females. The close spatial association of alleles for loci involved in the train in males, and for preference for more exuberant trains in females, on the chromosome (linkage disequilibrium) causes a positive feedback loop that exaggerates both the male traits and the female preferences. Another hypothesis is sensory bias, in which females have a preference for a trait in a nonmating context that becomes transferred to mating. Multiple causality for the evolution of female choice is also possible.


title: Peafowl

text: Work concerning female behaviour in many species of animals has sought to confirm Darwin's basic idea of female preference for males with certain characteristics as a major force in the evolution of species. Females have often been shown to distinguish small differences between potential mates, and to prefer mating with individuals bearing the most exaggerated characteristics. In some cases, those males have been shown to be more healthy and vigorous, suggesting that the ornaments serve as markers indicating the males' abilities to survive, and thus their genetic qualities.


title: Peafowl

text: The peacock's train and iridescent plumage are perhaps the best-known example of traits believed to have arisen through sexual selection, though with some controversy. Male peafowl erect their trains to form a shimmering fan in their display to females. Marion Petrie tested whether or not these displays signalled a male's genetic quality by studying a feral population of peafowl in Whipsnade Wildlife Park in southern England. The number of eyespots in the train predicted a male's mating success. She was able to manipulate this success by cutting the eyespots off some of the males' tails: females lost interest in pruned males and became attracted to untrimmed ones. Males with fewer eyespots, thus with lower mating success, suffered from greater predation. She allowed females to mate with males with differing numbers of eyespots, and reared the offspring in a communal incubator to control for differences in maternal care. Chicks fathered by more ornamented males weighed more than those fathered by less ornamented males, an attribute generally associated with better survival rate in birds. These chicks were released into the park and recaptured one year later. Those with heavily ornamented feathers were better able to avoid predators and survive in natural conditions. Thus, Petrie's work has shown correlations between tail ornamentation, mating success, and increased survival ability in both the ornamented males and their offspring.


title: Peafowl

text: Furthermore, peafowl and their sexual characteristics have been used in the discussion of the causes for sexual traits. Amotz Zahavi used the excessive tail plumes of male peafowls as evidence for his "handicap principle". Since these trains are likely to be deleterious to an individual's survival (as their brilliance makes them more visible to predators and their length hinders escape from danger), Zahavi argued that only the fittest males could survive the handicap of a large train. Thus, a brilliant train serves as an honest indicator for females that these highly ornamented males are good at surviving for other reasons, so are preferable mates. This theory may be contrasted with Ronald Fisher's theory (and Darwin's hypothesis) that male sexual traits are the result of initially arbitrary aesthetic selection by females.


title: Peafowl

text: In contrast to Petrie's findings, a seven-year Japanese study of free-ranging peafowl concluded that female peafowl do not select mates solely on the basis of their trains. Mariko Takahashi found no evidence that peahens preferred peacocks with more elaborate trains (such as with more eyespots), a more symmetrical arrangement, or a greater length. Takahashi determined that the peacock's train was not the universal target of female mate choice, showed little variance across male populations, and did not correlate with male physiological condition. Adeline Loyau and her colleagues responded that alternative and possibly central explanations for these results had been overlooked. They concluded that female choice might indeed vary in different ecological conditions.


title: Peafowl

text: A peacock's copulation success rate depends on the colours of his eyespots (ocelli) and the angle at which they are displayed. The angle at which the ocelli are displayed during courtship is more important in a peahen's choice of males than train size or number of ocelli. Peahens pay careful attention to the different parts of a peacock's train during his display. The lower train is usually evaluated during close-up courtship, while the upper train is more of a long-distance attraction signal. Actions such as train rattling and wing shaking also kept the peahens' attention.


title: Peafowl

text: Although an intricate display catches a peahen's attention, the redundant signal hypothesis also plays a crucial role in keeping this attention on the peacock's display. The redundant signal hypothesis explains that whilst each signal that a male projects is about the same quality, the addition of multiple signals enhances the reliability of that mate. This idea also suggests that the success of multiple signalling is not only due to the repetitiveness of the signal, but also of multiple receivers of the signal. In the peacock species, males congregate a communal display during breeding season and the peahens observe. Peacocks first defend their territory through intra-sexual behaviour, defending their areas from intruders. They fight for areas within the congregation to display a strong front for the peahens. Central positions are usually taken by older, dominant males, which influences mating success. Certain morphological and behavioural traits come in to play during inter and intra-sexual selection, which include train length for territory acquisition and visual and vocal displays involved in mate choice by peahens.


title: Peafowl

text: Peafowl are forest birds that nest on the ground, but roost in trees. They are terrestrial feeders. All species of peafowl are believed to be polygamous. In common with other members of the Galliformes, the males possess metatarsal spurs or "thorns" on their legs used during intraspecific territorial fights with some other members of their kind.


title: Peafowl

text: In courtship, vocalisation stands to be a primary way for peacocks to attract peahens. Some studies suggest that the intricacy of the "song" produced by displaying peacocks proved to be impressive to peafowl. Singing in peacocks usually occurs just before, just after, or sometimes during copulation.


title: Peafowl

text: Peafowl are omnivores and mostly eat plants, flower petals, seed heads, insects and other arthropods, reptiles, and amphibians. Wild peafowl look for their food scratching around in leaf litter either early in the morning or at dusk. They retreat to the shade and security of the woods for the hottest portion of the day. These birds are not picky and will eat almost anything they can fit in their beak and digest. They actively hunt insects like ants, crickets and termites; millipedes; and other arthropods and small mammals. Indian peafowl also eat small snakes.


title: Peafowl

text: Domesticated peafowl may also eat bread and cracked grain such as oats and corn, cheese, cooked rice and sometimes cat food. It has been noticed by keepers that peafowl enjoy protein-rich food including larvae that infest granaries, different kinds of meat and fruit, as well as vegetables including dark leafy greens, broccoli, carrots, beans, beets, and peas.