This is a beautiful picture and a sight to behold, but is it a fractal? The answer really depends on the nature of the small white clusters in the peacock’s tail. If each is regarded as a whole peacock tail in miniature, then we have a branching fractal structure. It is impossible to determine the nature of the clusters from the photograph, but in any case it is unlikely that the diminishing similarity would continue beyond this first step. Of course, in nature, we always lose the ‘infinite descent’ encountered with a real fractal – the question is, how soon?
