Scientific Name	Gallus gallus
Common Name	bantam, chickens;
Taxonomy ID	9031
Lineage	cellular organisms > Eukaryota > Opisthokonta > Metazoa > Eumetazoa > Bilateria > Deuterostomia > Chordata > Craniata > Vertebrata > Gnathostomata > Teleostomi > Euteleostomi > Sarcopterygii > Dipnotetrapodomorpha > Tetrapoda > Amniota > Sauropsida > Sauria > Archelosauria > Archosauria > Dinosauria > Saurischia > Theropoda > Coelurosauria > Aves > Neognathae > Galloanserae > Galliformes > Phasianidae > Phasianinae > Gallus
External Links	NCBI;
Representative Assembly	Gallus_gallus-5.0	GCA_000002315.4	DNA GFF RNA Protein

Description:

The red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) is a tropical member of the family Phasianidae. It is thought to be ancestral to the domestic chicken, with some hybridisation with the grey junglefowl. The red junglefowl was first domesticated at least five thousand years ago in Asia, since then it has spread around the world, and the domestic form is kept globally as a very productive food source of both meat and eggs. The chicken is a domesticated form of the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) that is native to Asia. The chicken is an important agricultural animal and has served as a model organism in many areas of biomedical research; it is one of the primary models for embryology and development, the study of viruses, and cancer. The chicken genome is less than half the size of that of mouse or human, and consists of 38 autosomes and two sex chromosomes, referred to as Z and W. Unlike mammals, male birds are homozygous (ZZ) while females are heterozygous (ZW). Chicken chromosomes, like other avian species, exhibit a much greater variation in size ranging from 200 Mb to 5 Mb; the smaller chromosomes are termed "microchromosomes".