The Californian turkey (Meleagris californica ) is an extinct species of turkey indigenous to the Pleistocene and early Holocene of California. It has been estimated that the Californian turkey went extinct about 10,000 years ago.
Fossil evidence indicates that the Californian turkey was stockier than the wild turkey of the eastern United States, with a shorter, wider beak, but was largely similar otherwise. It is a very common fossil in the La Brea tar pits.: 5 Size-wise, though, the California turkey might've been intermediate in size between the smaller southwestern turkey (Meleagris crassipes ) and the larger North American wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo ).
The extinction of this species is thought to have been caused by a combination of drought, which would have forced turkeys to restrict their lives to areas close to water sources, and overhunting by humans who had arrived relatively recently in the region.: 52
This species was originally described as a type of peacock, by Miller in 1909, and placed in the genus Pavo with that bird.: 3 Years later he reclassified it as an intermediate between the peacock and the ocellated turkey. But it eventually was seen as a close relative of modern extant turkeys.
Oviparous animals are female animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive...
Precocial species are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching. Precocial species are normall...
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