Wildlife
Explorers brought wild turkeys to Europe in the sixteenth century. So successful was their domestication that English settlers actually took them back to America with them as farm stock. Male turkeys are known as gobblers after the loud 'gobbling' calls they use to attract females, a sound that can be heard over a mile away.
Turkeys' heads and necks can be blue, red or white depending on the season or their mood. These are the heaviest of the gamebirds, but they're no slouches when it comes to getting around, they can run at 25mph and fly at 55mph. Turkeys are plentiful and widespread in North America, where they forage in fields and woodlands by day and roost in trees at night.
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Wild Turkeys
Wild turkeys are different to the domestic turkeys that humans have tamed for food.
Wild turkeys are different to the domestic turkeys that humans have tamed for food.
Snake in a box
Wild turkeys are not afraid of snakes but they are confused by tortoises and turtles!
Wild turkeys are not afraid of snakes but they are confused by tortoises and turtles!
Talking Turkey
Joe Hutto demonstrates different wild turkey calls and communicates with turkeys.
Joe Hutto demonstrates different wild turkey calls and communicates with turkeys. The use of language and understanding of the ecology indicates the intelligence of wild turkeys.
Do turkeys have feelings?
Wild turkeys showing their affectionate side.
Joe Hutto explains turkeys have feelings. Wild turkeys are affectionate towards their surrogate mum and Sweetpea is the most tactile of all the baby turkeys.
The Wild turkey can be found in a number of locations including: North America. Find out more about these places and what else lives there.
The following habitats are found across the Wild turkey distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.
Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web
Least Concern
Year assessed: 2009
Classified by: IUCN 3.1
The Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is native to North America and is the heaviest member of the Galliformes. It is the same species as the domestic turkey, which derives from the South Mexican subspecies of wild turkey (not to be confused with the Meleagris ocellata native to the forests of the Yucatán Peninsula).
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Oak wood
Farmland
Marsh
Broadleaf forest
Courtship display
Hierarchical
Adapted to flying
Acoustic communication
Maternal care
Moulting
Egg layer
Polygynous
Polymorphism
Active at birth
Social
Adapted to running
Sexual dimorphism
Visual communication