The heath hen (Tympanuchus cupido cupido ) is an extinct subspecies of the greater prairie chicken (Tympanuchus cupido ), a large North American bird in the grouse family. It became extinct in 1932.
Heath hens lived in the scrubby heathland barrens of coastal North America from southernmost New Hampshire to northern Virginia in historical times. The other subspecies of prairie chickens inhabited prairies from Texas north to Indiana and the Dakotas (and earlier in mid-southern Canada).
Heath hens were extremely common in their habitat during colonial times; because of this, along with being a gallinaceous bird, they were hunted by settlers extensively for food. It is speculated that the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving dinner featured heath hens and not wild turkey. By the late 18th century, the heath hen had a reputation as poor man's food for being so cheap and plentiful; somewhat earlier, Thomas L. Winthrop had reported that they lived on the Boston Common (presumably when it was still used to graze cows and other agricultural activities), and that servants would sometimes bargain with a new employer for not being given heath hen for food more often than two or three days a week.
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...
H
starts withVery similar to the other greater prairie chicken subspecies of the Great Plains, but slightly smaller, the length of the bird was approximately 17 inches (43 cm) and weight was about two pounds (0.9 kg). A specimen weighing three pounds was claimed by Alexander Wilson but that figure was not verified by later ornithologists. Several key plumage characteristics separated the heath hens from their Great Plains counterparts: heath hens generally displayed a strong reddish hue in their plumage, especially in their crop area, and much thicker barring throughout the breast and sides. Their pinnae (horns) were generally pointed, and tails were a greyish brown.
