You really aren’t all that surprised if you have read TaxoDiary with any amount of consistency over the years. I love quirky and unusual taxonomies, so considering the season of course I found a turkey taxonomy.
The National Center for Biotechnology Information provided a through classification as you can see at the end of this link. The lineage and relationships are clearly identified. Though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, it never occurred to me that a quail or pheasant, or even a grouse was related to a turkey. A fowl is not always the same as other fowls.
This reminds me of when my husband and I went to a very nice restaurant on our honeymoon and the special was ostrich. Being the epicurious adventurer, I ordered it and the waiter asked how I wanted it cooked. It is fowl, so obviously I answered “done”? He went on to explain that ostrich is actually red meat like a steak. Who knew? I certainly didn’t. Ostriches have feathers, so you can see why I would assume fowl.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
