On Thu, 2 Oct 2003 18:42:06 +0000 (UTC), jeff5{at}freemars.org (Jeff
Root) wrote:

>Do wild chickens still exist?  Are chickens a species which was
>developed by domestication and breeding, or did chickens per se
>already exist before humans started domesticating them?
> 
>Can anyone provide a link to images of what the immediate
>precursor of the chicken looked like or may have looked like?
> 
>  -- Jeff, in Minneapolis
> 
>Subtract 1 from my e-mail address above for my real address.
>.

The domestic chicken is a subspecies of junglefowl, Gallus gallus,
which most definitely still exist.  They were domesticated some time
ago, possibly 8000 years.  All of our domestic plants and animals were
modified from the parent source -- sometimes producing what we
consider a new species (dogs, corn), sometimes producing merely a
variety or subspecies (carrots are the same as Queen Anne's Lace).

A technical reference is

A Fumihito et al.   Monophyletic origin and unique dispersal patterns
of domestic fowls, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci 93:6792-6795, 1996.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/93/13/6792.pdf

A picture of one possible parent species is at
http://www.centralpets.com/pages/critterpages/birds/wild_birds/WBD4315.shtml
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