History of the crested turkey, a rare variant of the domesticated turkey (Meleagris gallopavo gallopavo)

Abstract

In 1919, the famous Dutch poultry judge Cornelis van Gink (1890–1968) was aware of the existence of crested turkeys. Was this bird a natural rarity, variation or mutation? A search through historical records and published works yielded very few references to crested turkeys. From the financial accounts of the Great Condé in 1679 to pictures in books and journals of the eighteenth and nineteenth century in England and America, from a mounted specimen in Parma to a first photograph in 1938 in Newsweek, the beauty and rareness of this bird is evident. Attempts to breed crested turkeys were unsuccessful. In the nineteenth century William Bernhardt Tegetmeier (1816–1912), editor of The Field, had a major interest in these turkeys and together with Charles Darwin (1809–1882) studied and described skull deformations associated with well-known and common crested breeds of chickens. Deformation of the skull was also observed in the mounted specimen of the crested turkey preserved in Parma, Italy. Genetic analyses of crested poultry indicate that a mutation (autosomal incompletely dominant) in the crest gene is responsible for this phenotype. The mutation for crest formation with additional skull deformation might be responsible for some in ovo lethality or poor hatching which could explain the failure or difficulty in breeding this phenotype. In conclusion, all data indicate that the crested turkey is a mutation of the domestic turkey Meleagris gallopavo gallopavo and does not justify a new species or subspecies name.