![]() ![]() ![]() Īn infant turkey is called a chick or poult. The anhinga ( Anhinga anhinga) is sometimes called the water turkey, from the shape of its tail when the feathers are fully spread for drying. Several other birds that are sometimes called turkeys are not particularly closely related: the brushturkeys are megapodes, and the bird sometimes known as the Australian turkey is the Australian bustard ( Ardeotis australis). In Portuguese a turkey is a peru the name is thought to derive from ' Peru'. These are thought to arise from the supposed belief of Christopher Columbus that he had reached India rather than the Americas on his voyage. Other European names for turkeys incorporate an assumed Indian origin, such as dinde ('from India') in French, индюшка ( indyushka, 'bird of India') in Russian, indyk in Polish and Ukrainian, and hindi ('Indian') in Turkish. The lack of context around his usage suggests that the term was already widespread. William Shakespeare used the term in Twelfth Night, believed to be written in 1601 or 1602. In 1550, the English navigator William Strickland, who had introduced the turkey into England, was granted a coat of arms including a "turkey-cock in his pride proper". Again the importers lent the name to the bird hence turkey-cocks and turkey-hens, and soon thereafter, turkeys. Ī second theory arises from turkeys coming to England not directly from the Americas, but via merchant ships from the Middle East, where they were domesticated successfully. The name of the North American bird may have then become turkey fowl or Indian turkeys, which was eventually shortened to turkeys. The birds were therefore nicknamed turkey coqs. One theory suggests that when Europeans first encountered turkeys in the Americas, they incorrectly identified the birds as a type of guineafowl, which were already being imported into Europe by English merchants to the Levant via Constantinople. The linguist Mario Pei proposes two possible explanations for the name turkey. Plate 1 of The Birds of America by John James Audubon, depicting a wild turkey Meleagris crassipes Southwestern turkey - New Mexico.Meleagris californica Californian turkey – Southern California.The forests of the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico The forests of North America, from Mexico (where they were first domesticated in Mesoamerica) throughout the midwestern and eastern United States and into southeastern Canada They are close relatives of the grouse and are classified alongside them in the tribe Tetraonini. Turkeys are classed in the family Phasianidae ( pheasants, partridges, francolins, junglefowl, grouse, and relatives thereof) in the taxonomic order Galliformes. The type species is the wild turkey ( Meleagris gallopavo). The genus name is from the Ancient Greek μελεαγρις, meleagris meaning "guineafowl". The genus Meleagris was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. ![]() ![]() The wild turkey species is the ancestor of the domestic turkey, which was domesticated approximately 2,000 years ago. They share a recent common ancestor with grouse, pheasants, and other fowl. The earliest turkeys evolved in North America over 20 million years ago. Ī male ocellated turkey ( Meleagris ocellata) with a blue head An alternative theory posits that another bird, a guinea fowl native to Madagascar introduced to England by merchants trading to Turkey, was the original source, and that the term was then transferred to the New World bird by English colonizers with knowledge of the previous species. The British at the time therefore associated the bird with the country Turkey and the name prevailed. In English, "turkey" probably got its name from the domesticated variety being imported to Britain in ships coming from the Turkish Levant via Spain. It was this domesticated turkey that later reached Eurasia, during the Columbian exchange. Native to North America, the wild species was bred as domesticated turkey by indigenous peoples. As with many large ground-feeding birds (order Galliformes), the male is bigger and much more colorful than the female. They are among the largest birds in their ranges. Males of both turkey species have a distinctive fleshy wattle, called a snood, that hangs from the top of the beak. There are two extant turkey species: the wild turkey ( Meleagris gallopavo) of eastern and central North America and the ocellated turkey ( Meleagris ocellata) of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The turkey is a large bird in the genus Meleagris, native to North America. Egg of wild turkey ( Meleagris gallopavo) ![]()
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