Template:POTD/2022-11-24

Picture of the day

The turkey is a large species of bird in the genus Meleagris, native to North America. There are two extant turkey species: the wild turkey (M. gallopavo) of eastern and central North America and the ocellated turkey (M. 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 (members of the order Galliformes), the male is bigger and much more colorful than the female. This photograph, taken at Deer Island Preserve in Novato, California, shows a male Rio Grande wild turkey (M. g. intermedia) strutting – the courtship display, in which the snood (the erectile, fleshy protuberance on the forehead) engorges with blood, becomes redder and elongates, hanging well below the beak.Photograph credit: Frank Schulenburg