Happy Thanksgiving from the “Rainbow” Turkey

Everyone’s heard of the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). However, did you know that there are six different species of turkey (four of the six are extinct)?

Meet the ocellated turkey (M. ocellata), so-named because of the eyespots on its feathers. It’s actually just as beautiful as the wild turkey, but don’t count on eating it for Thanksgiving dinner: it’s a near-threatened species.

The ocellated turkey lives in the Yucatán Peninsula and is slightly smaller than the wild turkey.

Two of the other four species of (extinct) turkey are unnamed, so I’ll just call them Meleagris sp. “Bone Valley” and M. sp. “Macasphalt Shell Pit”. The other two species are the Californian turkey (M. californica) and the crassipes turkey (M. crassipes).

Its “gobble” sounds like “bok-bok-bok-bok GUMboo.”

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!