The red junglefowl is a shy bird of forest margins, scratching in leaf litter and flying up to roost at dusk. Domestication drew on it repeatedly across South and South-East Asia, and the domestic chicken is essentially the same species, Gallus gallus, in altered form.
The picture is not purely single-ancestor. Genomic analysis found that the yellow skin colour of many domestic breeds derives from the grey junglefowl, Gallus sonneratii, meaning hybridisation contributed to the domestic genome. Estimates of when domestication began have also been revised; recent archaeological reassessment favours a later origin, associated with the spread of rice and millet cultivation, than older claims of very deep antiquity.
There is a conservation twist. Wild red junglefowl now interbreed extensively with feral and village chickens across much of the range, so genetically pure wild populations are increasingly hard to identify.