The turkeys of North America are divided into five distinct subspecies. They differ slightly in size, color, and habits but the geographic regions where they inhabit also helps to distinguish them.

An Eastern Wild Turkey doing its full strut display.
Photo by: Matt Wettish

The Rio Grande Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo intermedia) is native to the brushy scrub of the southern Great Plains, western Texas, and northeastern Mexico. They may be found in elevations up to 6,000 feet in mountainous areas, but generally favor country that is more open than the woodland habitat favored by their Eastern cousins. Overall, Rio Grande turkeys are comparatively pale and copper colored. They are distinguished from the Eastern and Florida subspecies by having tail and rump feathers tipped with yellowish buff or tan color. Rio Grande turkeys may form large flocks of several hundred birds during the winter months and may range several miles from roosting sites each day.

Merriam Turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo merriami) are found primarily in the ponderosa pine, western mountain regions of the United States. Adult males are distinguished from the Eastern, Florida, and Rio Grande by the nearly white feathers on the lower back and tail feather margins. It is comparable in size to the Eastern turkey, but has a blacker appearance with blue purple and bronze reflections.

Archeologists believe that about 2,000 years ago the Native Americans of the southwestern United States domesticated a turkey similar to the wild Merriam’s turkey. When the Spanish explored southern Mexico in the middle 1500s, they found tame turkeys being kept by Native Americans throughout that area. This now extinct turkey of southern Mexico (Meleagris gallopavo gallopavo) is believed to be the ancestral stock of the domestic turkey that the Spanish encountered. This domesticated turkey was brought back to Spain and was widely accepted throughout Europe. The domesticated turkey was brought back to America by the English colonists of the Atlantic seaboard.

The Gould’s turkey (Meleagris gallopavo mexicana) is found in portions of Arizona and New Mexico, as well as northern Mexico. The Gould’s turkey is a bird of the mountainous areas of this region. It is the largest of the five subspecies and resembles the Merriam’s turkey. They have longer legs, larger feet, and larger center tail feathers than any of the other wild turkey subspecies in North America. Gould’s differ by having distinctive white tips on the tail feathers and tail rump coverts that usually separate to show an “eyelash” appearance. Lower back and rump feathers have copper and greenish-gold reflections, unlike the faintly iridescent velvety black found on the Merriam’s. Gould’s body plumage is somewhat blue-green in coloration.

The Ocellated turkey (Meleagris ocellata) is a different species than the other wild turkeys of North America. The Ocellated turkey only exists in a 50,000 square mile area of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. The Ocellated turkey is easily distinguished from its North American cousins in appearance. The body feathers of both male and female birds have a bronze-green iridescence. The tail feathers in both sexes are blue-gray in color, with a well-defined eye-shaped, blue-bronze colored spot near the end, followed with a bright gold tip.

The five subspecies of turkeys in North America and the Ocellated turkey of Mexico vary slightly in size and plumage but they all provide excitement and appreciation for hunters, photographers, and bird watches who pursue this noble game bird.