Turkey (bird)

The turkey is a large bird in the genus Meleagris, native to North America. 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. Males of both turkey species have a distinctive fleshy wattle, called a snood, that hangs from the top of the beak. They are among the largest birds in their ranges. As with many large ground-feeding birds (order Galliformes), the male is bigger and much more colorful than the female. Native to North America, the wild species was bred as domesticated turkey by indigenous peoples. It was this domesticated turkey that later reached Eurasia, during the Columbian exchange. In English, "turkey" probably got its name from the domesticated variety being imported to Britain in ships coming from the Turkish Levant via Spain. The British at the time therefore associated the bird with the country Turkey and the name prevailed. 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 earliest turkeys evolved in North America over 20 million years ago. They share a recent common ancestor with grouse, pheasants, and other fowl. The wild turkey species is the ancestor of the domestic turkey, which was domesticated approximately 2,000 years ago. The genus Meleagris was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. The genus name is from the Ancient Greek μελεαγρις, meleagris meaning "guineafowl". The type species is the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). Turkeys are classed in the family Phasianidae (pheasants, partridges, francolins, junglefowl, grouse, and relatives thereof) in the taxonomic order Galliformes. They are close relatives of the grouse and are classified alongside them in the tribe Tetraonini.