What is a turkey?
A: The turkey is a large bird in the genus Meleagris, native to
North
America.
What are the two extant turkey species?
A: 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 what?
A: A distinctive fleshy wattle, called a snood, that hangs from the top of
the beak.
As with many large ground-feeding birds (order
Galliformes), the male is what?
A: Bigger and much more colorful than the female.
Where did the earliest turkeys evolve?
A: In North America over 20 million years ago.
They share a recent common ancestor with what?
A: Grouse, pheasants, and other fowl.
The wild turkey species is the ancestor of what?
A: The domestic turkey, which was domesticated approximately 2,000 years
ago.
The genus Meleagris was introduced in 1758 by whom?
A: The Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema
Naturae.
The genus name is from what?
A: The Ancient Greek μελεαγρις, meleagris meaning "guineafowl".
Turkeys are classed in what family?
A: Phasianidae (pheasants, partridges, francolins, junglefowl, grouse, and
relatives thereof) in the taxonomic order Galliformes.
In 1550, the English navigator William Strickland, who
had introduced the turkey into England, was granted what?
A: A coat of arms including a "turkey-cock in his pride proper".
William Shakespeare used the term in what?
A: Twelfth Night, believed to be written in 1601 or 1602.
The lack of context around his usage suggests that the
term was what?
A: Already widespread.
Where were turkeys likely first domesticated?
A: In Pre-Columbian Mexico, where they held a cultural and symbolic
importance.
Turkeys were first exported to Europe via Spain around
when?
A: 1519, where they gained immediate popularity among the aristocratic
classes.
When did turkeys arrive in England?
A: In 1541.
Turkeys have been known to be aggressive toward whom?
A: Humans and pets in residential areas.
Wild turkeys have a social structure and pecking order
and habituated turkeys may respond to humans and
animals as they do to what?
A: To other turkeys.
Habituated turkeys may attempt to dominate or attack
people that the birds view as what?
A: Subordinates.
The well-documented California turkey Meleagris
californica, became extinct recently enough to have been what?
A: Hunted by early human settlers.
It has been suggested that its demise was due to what?
A: The combined pressures of human hunting and climate change at the end of
the last glacial period.