Meleagris gallopavo

The wild turkey is an upland game bird native to North America, one of two extant species of turkey and the heaviest member of the order Galliformes. It is the ancestor to the domestic turkey, which was originally derived from a southern Mexican subspecies of wild turkey.

Meleagris gallopavo

Paul Danese · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
wild turkeyPBDB
Sits inside
MeleagrisPBDB
Diet
granivorePBDB, for Phasianidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Phasianidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Phasianidae

Time the record covers

At least 198 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 210 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 0 of 48 occurrencesPleistocene — about 37 of 48 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 11 of 48 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 8 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 34 occurrences210 ka – 11.7 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

48 occurrences of Meleagris gallopavo on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

48 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

3 formations

Okeechobee — 27.53°N, 80.47°WAmerican Falls Lake Bed E — 42.80°N, 112.90°WWicomico — 29.60°N, 82.42°W

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The named rock units Meleagris gallopavo has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 44 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Meleagris gallopavo and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Meleagris gallopavo and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,023 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 47 sites for Meleagris gallopavo, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

35 references

Each of the 48 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 23 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Meleagris gallopavo

Credit
Paul Danese
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itMeleagris through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758