Thanksgiving Special - Turkeys are Reptiles, but are they Herps?

11/26/2025

What is a Turkey?

For brevity sake, birds are dinosaurs. They are a lineage of theropods, which is a group that contains Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor, and Spinosaurus. Birds were not the only dinosaurs to evolve feathers, and are not the only dinosaurs to evolve flight. Birds were however the only group of dinosaurs to escape the KT Extinction around 66 million years ago, and the clade Galloanserae evolved prior to that event. Gallo means "rooster" and "anser" means "goose". This clade host the Galliformes (the landfowl) and the Anseriformes (the waterfowl). Anseriformes contains the Magpie Goose, Screamers, and the group I call "ducks". If Whistling Ducks, Ruddy

Juvenile "Bourbon Red" Turkey. Our domestic breeds of turkey originate from the Wild Turkey.

Feral Peafowl from Florida. Peafowl are a good example of what traits link turkeys to other pheasants.

Ducks, and Mallards are ducks, than so are swans and geese that are not the Magpie Goose. I will not go too deep into the phylogeny, as we are not talking about waterfowl today, but a Wild Turkey is closer related to a Canada Goose than it is to say a Turkey Vulture. Wild Turkeys are members of the Galliformes, in the family Phasianidae or what I call the "pheasants". I call this group the pheasants as these birds are named more based on size than relativity, and "pheasants" show up everywhere. Also Phasianidae literally refers to pheasants. The Red Junglefowl is a member of this group, and it is a founding species to our Domestic Chicken. We are probably all familiar with the Northern Bobwhite, but I would argue the Bobwhite is not a quail. It is actually in the Family Odontophoridae, making Typical Quail or Old World Quail in the genus Coturnix closer relatives to Wild Turkeys than they are to Bobwhite. If Bobwhite are quail, than so are Turkeys, Chickens, Peacocks, and Grouse.

All of this is to say: turkeys are amongst a unique group of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are archosaurs, like Crocodilians. Archosaurs are reptiles, and therefore Wild Turkeys (and their captive descendants) are reptiles. So, why don't we study them in Herpetology?

Herpetology

Blue-breasted Quail (Synoicus chinensis) are in the same family with turkey and Typical Quail. These birds are often kept in aviaries and called "Button Quail". Because of such, I see people often confuse them with Buttonquails of the Family Turnicidae, which are closer realities to sandpipers.

I often talk about this subject when I give programs to Master Naturalists: herpetology is an outdated idea. I don't want to say the science is flawed, the people are bad, or anything personal to anyone involved, but the concept of Herpetology more held together by tradition and individual's love of less than charismatic species than anything scientific. Reptiles are amniotes. You are an amniote. A lizard is closer related to you than it is a salamander. While vastly different, is ways I need not explain, lizard reproduction is closer to human reproduction than it is amphibian reproduction. This is not to even to mention the unique respiratory system, cellular conditions, or even swallowing mechanisms of amphibians. So, why are they lumped together in the first place?

Herpeton is the Greek word for "creeping thing". Why might that sound familiar. Well, it shows up in the Bible several times. For example: Leviticus 11:41-45 says "every creeping thing that creeps on the earth shall be an abomination". All of my problems with this verse aside, the Hebrew scripts were translated to Greek and then later to English. Hebrew is a small language, so whatever word or words used got changed over (hence the redundancy of "creeping thing that creeps") to a Greek word that may have a different translation than originally intended. At this point, science knew what mammals were; they knew birds were feathered winged vertebrates but not much more, but what do we do with the leftovers? Salamanders, Crocodilians, and snakes look like lizards. Turtles and frogs are weird. The thought seems to have been to just lump them... but how? Well, they all crawl on their belly, so creeping things.

Now, I am not saying to lump ornithology and mammalogy into herpetology. I think it is fine to break birds into their own study and mammals. I do however think herpetology should be two different sciences. Amphibology and Reptiliology. I did not make these up and one can call themselves one or both of these. I just think instead of the popular umbrella of "herpetology" they should fall under zoology directly. When I teach herpetology courses, sometimes it is difficult to cover everything as I am really teaching two sciences together. Now, I know entomologist can make, and I say should make, the same argument. I know many people float between the two, and I have vast experience in both fields myself. I also know that as far as Master Naturalist trainings go, they can only have so many classes. My point is, herpetology is glued together by tradition and the drifters that dabble in both, and not science. If you are okay with that, then that is fine. If not, maybe there should be some change. I just think there is room for change. Change is inevitable and never easy.

Is a Turkey a Herp?

I would say no. Turkeys are reptiles, but they are not intended in the term "herpeton". I define herpetology as the study of non-avian reptiles and amphibians, and I would be shocked if any herpetologists would disagree with that statement on its head. Maybe they would tweak it; maybe say non-dinosaurian reptiles, but if ankylosaurs survived to this day, would herpetologists study them? This is just a fun thought experiment to make you think and I hope you found it fun. Happy Thanksgiving!