Meleagris californica

The Californian turkey is an extinct species of turkey that lived during the Pleistocene and Early Holocene epochs in California. It has been estimated that the Californian turkey went extinct about 10,000 years ago.

Meleagris californica

Jonathan Chen · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
MeleagrisPBDB
Diet
granivorePBDB, for Phasianidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Phasianidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Phasianidae

Time the record covers

At most 199 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 210 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 7 of 7 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 7 occurrences213 ka–189 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences189 ka–166 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences166 ka–142 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences142 ka–118 ka Mya — about 0.8 occurrences118 ka–95 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence95 ka–71 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence71 ka–47 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence47 ka–24 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence24 ka–0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences710 ka0 Mya

7 occurrences of Meleagris californica on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

7 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Meleagris californica and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Meleagris californica and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

194 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Meleagris californica, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

5 references

Each of the 7 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Meleagris californica

Credit
Jonathan Chen
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Structured light scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Meleagris californica · LACM:rlb:E 6430

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itMeleagris through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Miller 1909)