Wild Turkey

Meleagris gallopavo

Order GALLIFORMES - Family PHASIANIDAE - Subfamily Meleagridinae

Menu

1. Cool Facts
2. Description
3. Similar Species
4. Sound
5. Range
6. Habitat
7. Food
8. Behavior
9. Reproduction
10. Conservation Status
11. Other Names

The Wild Turkey was a very important food animal to Native Americans, but it was eliminated from much of its range by the early 1900s. Introduction programs have successfully established it in most of its original range, and even into areas where it never occurred before.

Cool Facts

• A native of North America, the turkey is one of only two domesticated birds originating in the New World. The Muscovy Duck is the other.

• European explorers took Wild Turkeys to Europe from Mexico in the early 1500s. They were so successfully domesticated in Europe that English colonists brought them back with them when they settled on the Atlantic Coast. The domestic form has retained the white tail tip of the original Mexican subspecies, and that character can be used to distinguish wandering barnyard birds from wild turkeys which have chestnut-brown tail tips.

• The male Wild Turkey provides no parental care. When the eggs hatch, the chicks follow the female. She feeds them for a few days, but they quickly learn to feed themselves. Several hens and their broods may join up into bands of more than 30 birds. Winter groups have been seen to exceed 200.

• Attempts to use game farm turkeys for reintroduction programs failed. In the 1940s wild birds were caught and transported to new areas, where they quickly became established and flourished. Such transplantations have been responsible for the spread of the Wild Turkey to 49 states.

Description

• Size: 110-115 cm (43-45 in)
• Wingspan: 125-144 cm (49-57 in)
• Weight: 2500-10800 g (88.25-381.24 ounces)

• Large, dark ground-dwelling bird.
• Long, powerful legs.
• Large, fan-shaped tail.
• Bare head and neck.
• Short, slightly downcurved bill.
• Tip of tail chestnut-brown (in East) or white (in Southwest).

• Bronzy iridescence to body feathers.
• Wing feathers barred black and white.
• Wings broad and rounded.
• Bumps on facial skin.
• Tuft of filamentous feathers (beard) hanging down from chest.

Sex Differences

Male larger, with much more prominent beard, head and neck completely bare, often bluish.

Male

Breast feathers tipped with black. Head and neck blue-gray with pink wattles. During spring display, forehead white, face bright blue, neck scarlet. Spurs on legs. Beard long and obvious, larger on older birds.

Female

Breast feathers tipped with brown, gray, or white. Head with small feathers. Beard small, if present.

Immature

Immature similar to adult.

Similar Species

• Domestic turkey with white tip to tail.

Sound

Male display an explosive gobble. Call a rather nasal yelp.

»listen to songs of this species

Range

Summer Range

Resident from very southern Canada southward into Mexico and Florida, very local in West. Introduced into many western states, Hawaii, Europe, and New Zealand.

Habitat

Found in hardwood forests with scattered openings, swamps, mesquite grassland, ponderosa pine, and chaparral.

Food

Acorns, nuts, seeds, fruits, insects, buds, fern fronds, salamanders.

Behavior

Foraging

Forages on ground in flocks. Scratches ground to uncover nuts.

Courtship

The male gobbles to attract females. When she appears, he struts around her. He has his tail fanned and held up vertically, lowers his wings so that the wingtips drag on the ground, raises the feathers on his back, throws his head back onto his back with the bill forward, and inflates his crop. He makes occasional deep "chump" sounds, followed by a low "humm," and accompanied by a rapid vibration of his tail feathers. During the strut his facial skin engorges and the colors intensify, especially the white forehead.

Reproduction

Nest Type

A depression in dead leaves or vegetation on ground.

Egg Description

Tan or buffy white, evenly marked with tiny reddish spots.

Clutch Size

4-17 eggs.

Condition at Hatching

Downy and able to follow mother.

Conservation Status

Populations dropped drastically in 19th and early 20th century because of hunting and habitat loss. Northeastern populations were eradicated. Stocking programs successfully reintroduced turkeys to most of eastern range, and to areas outside the ancestral range in West. Populations continue to increase.

Other Names

Dindon sauvage (French)
Gaujalote (Spanish)

Sources used to construct this page:

Eaton, S. W. 1992. Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). In The Birds of North America, No. 22 (A. Poole, P. Stettenheim, and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.