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I took this photo of a peacock in the Taupo region of New Zealand.

"The peacocks erect and fan out their trains, drooping their half-open wings to the sides and strut and prance from one foot to the other, shivering from time to time to produce a spectacular shimmering, psychedelic display" [Raghavendra Gadagkar].

Plagiarism disclaimer: All the text below is directly or partly copied from the various sources I used (listed at the very end). This is not an official publication as it's just part of a FeatureLearn Course about Searching Online, so I haven't written my own article for this purpose.

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"Peacock" is commonly used as the name for a peafowl of the pheasant family. But in fact "peacock" is the name for the colorfully plumaged male peafowl only. The females are called peahens, they are smaller and grey or brown in color. The name of a baby peafowl is a peachick.

A group of peacocks is called a party, muster, ostentation, or pride.

The earliest example of the word in English writing comes from about 1300: “F[o]ure and xxti wild ges and a poucok” (“Four and twenty wild geese and a peacock”).   By the late 14th century Chaucer was using the word to refer to people who strutted and preened ostentatiously, as the peacock was perceived to do: “And yet as proud a pekok can he pulle.”   The term “proud as a peacock” is still used to this day.

The word peacock is related to Pavo, pavan or pavane (peacock dance, a processional dance common in Europe during the 16th century). Taos is the Greek name for the peacock, the French word is paon. Pavonated means peacock blue. Latin paupulo is 'the natural sound of the peacock'.

Misnomer
When the Spanish came to the New World (South America) and first saw the turkey, the only other animal that the turkey resembled, to them, was the peacock, so the Spanish word for turkey is pavo, coming from Latin pavo “peacock”.

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Peacocks are some of the largest flying birds on the planet. Their iridescent tail feathers, or coverts, are spread out in a distinctive train that is more than 60 percent of the bird’s total body length and boast colorful "eye" markings of blue, gold, red, and other hues. Selective breeding has created some unusual color combinations and there are also white peacocks, although those can't last long in the wild (too easy to detect by predators).

Peafowl are omnivorous birds, ground-feeders. They feeds on insects, plants, seeds, and flower heads. Peacocks have also been known to munch on small mammals and reptiles (even snakes) in order to supplement their diet, which ensures that they are getting the right nutrients.

They can be testy and do not mix well with other domestic birds. They can also be very noisy. They make sounds for mating, but also when they hear loud noises and will also call out at night.

Peacocks commonly get to about 20 years old, although some peacock individuals have been known to get to older ages particularly those peacock individuals that are in captivity.

Generally, the peacock populations are not under great threat although the green peacock, is listed as being vulnerable to extinction mainly due to hunting and habitat loss.

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Peacocks have a number of natural predators in the wild that include wild dogs and cats, medium sized mammals such as raccoons and even tigers have been known to hunt peacocks.

Humans were also predators:

Peafowl were considered a delicacy in Roman cultures for centuries, both the meat and the tongue.

Medieval Europe carried on eating peafowl. The bird was skinned and roasted before the skin, with feathers still intact, would be reattached and served in all its glory.

It was only after the 1600th Century, when turkeys were imported from Mexico, that the peacock was discarded as a table bird for the more fleshy American birds.

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Unlike it's common pheasant cousin that inhabits areas of the Northern Hemisphere, the peacock is found in warmer climate of the Southern Hemisphere. Peafowl were originally most commonly found in deserts and dry savanna areas.

From India/Sri Lanka:
Indian (Blue) Peafowl - Pavo cristatus
(cristatus means crested)
From Malaysia, Java and Burma (Myanmar):
Green Peafowl - Pavo muticus
(muticus means beardless)
From the African rain forest:
Congo peacock

Spicifer - found in Western Burma (Myanmar), a duller, bluer species
Imperator - found in Eastern Burma, Thailand and Indo China, much brighter with greener shades.
Muticus - found in Java, which is the slightly most brilliant then the Imperator.

The Chinese were the first people to import and domesticate the Indian Peafowl.

It was first introduced into the Mesopotamian cultures more than 4,000 years ago.

More than three thousand years ago, Phoenicians brought the peacock to Egypt and later they were brought into the Mediterranean area.

By the 14th century, peafowl were spread throughout Europe, however they were not common and were only owned by the rich and powerful.

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Wild peafowl often roost in forest trees (to avoid detection) and gather in groups called parties.

Females are believed to choose their mates according to the size, color, and quality of these outrageous feather trains. Suitable males may gather harems of several female.

Studies have shown that males with more iridescent eyespots have better game.

The large train of peacocks is used in mating rituals and courtship displays. It can be arched into a magnificent fan that reaches across the bird's back and touches the ground on either side.

During mating season, a flamboyant fowl will raise his iridescent train, shake his wings and vibrate his fan. Such displays can go on for hours.
Individual peacocks tend to vibrate their feathers at a consistent frequency. Males with longer trains vibrated at slightly higher frequencies than those with shorter ones. Shivering involved lower-frequency feather vibrations than rattling.

Peacocks with longer tail feathers are able to shake faster, suggesting that they have powerful muscles that make them more attractive to peahens.

Despite all this gyration, the eyespots stay still thanks to tiny hooks that lock the eyespot barbs together. The vibrations create an illusion that everything is moving except for the eyespots on top. By doing a microscopic study of the feathers, the scientists saw that the characteristic eyespots of peacocks are held together by microhooks while they wiggle and rattle their tails. This causes the surrounding filaments of the eyespots move along with the other feathers as the eyespot center remains still - eyespots then appear iridescent. Along with the movement, the feather-shaking vibration occurs at a frequency that is almost similar to the feather's usual frequency.

Each peahen lays between 4 and 8 brown coloured eggs and incubates those by sitting on them. The peafowl chicks hatch after an incubation period of about a month. The peahen looks after and rears her chicks on her own without any help from the peacock.

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At various times and in various cultures, it has served as a symbol of good and evil, death and resurrection, and of sinful pride and overweening vanity.  And much like its avian brethren, the crow and the raven, the peacock has figured heavily in folktales and fables, as well as in countless superstitions that still exist today. In the original home of the blue peacock, India, peacocks symbolized royalty and power.

The Greeks learned of the peacock only after Alexander the Great’s conquest - Aristotle called it a Persian bird. They quickly added the bird to their pantheon of deities.

In Greek Mythology, the peacock was believed to have sprung from the blood of Argos Panoptes, the hundred-eyed giant.  Later accounts state that it was Hera who, upon the death of Argos, placed his eyes in the peacock’s tail herself or—alternately—turned Argos into a peacock.  Because of this connection, the Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology explains that the peacock was the “special bird of Hera.”

The peacock was a symbol of immortality because the ancients believed that the peacock had flesh that did not decay after death.

The bird, which replaces its feathers every year, also became a symbol of renewal and resurrection in early Christian and Byzantine culture. In folk art, peacocks are often painted looking backwards at their tail, as a symbol for renewal. Cultures around the world often pair parrots, peacocks, and doves as focal points in Tree of Life designs.

Although held in high honor in many societies, in certain cultures peacocks have been associated with evil. Their "tail" feathers have been called evil eyes by Arab cultures. In some cultures it is considered bad luck to keep these feathers in the home, however they can be safely kept outside.

There are mixed tales told about peacocks in popular Islam. According to one story, God created a peacock which sat on a tree and prayed for 70,000 years using prayer beads. Then God put a mirror in front of the peacock, who was so pleased at its own beauty that it prostrated itself to God five times. So the tradition of five prayers a day arose among the Muslims.

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This is what peacocks look like mid flight.

There is also an astronomical constellation called Pavo or The Peacock.

Pavo constellation lies in the southern sky.

The constellation was introduced by the Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius from the observations of Dutch navigators Frederick de Houtman and Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser in the late 16th century. Pavo was first depicted in 1598 on Plancius’ globe and first appeared in a star atlas in 1603, in Johann Bayer’s Uranometria.

In Australia, "the Saucepan" is sometimes used as an unofficial name for part of the constellation of Pavo, when finding the south by the stars

Pavo contains five stars with confirmed planets and has no Messier objects. The brightest star in the constellation is Peacock, Alpha Pavonis, with an apparent magnitude of 1.94. There is one meteor shower associated with the constellation: the Delta Pavonids.

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https://www.sciencenews.org/article/peacocks-twerk-shake-their-tail-feathers

http://www.digitalvertebrae.com/fall06/daryllf/about_peacocks_hist.html
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/group/peacocks/

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/the-peacock-a-symbol-of-royalty.aspx?pageID=238&nID=65241&NewsCatID=438
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/animals/peacock.html

http://www.peacockday.com/peahens.html

https://mimimatthews.com/2016/05/13/the-peacock-in-myth-legend-and-19th-century-history/

http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/pavo-constellation/

https://a-z-animals.com/animals/peacock/

http://www.constellationsofwords.com/Constellations/Pavo.html