ELK, Wash. -- It doesn't look like a turkey and it doesn't look like a peacock, it looks like both. The mysterious bird paid a visit to the Bowman Ranch in Elk, Washington without warning.
“One day we see this thing with the head of a peacock up on the porch looking at itself in the window” Darin Bowman said. “I believe that's half turkey, half peacock. One just doesn't look like the others.”
The alleged peacock/turkey hybrid has been foraging and living wild with a group of turkeys.
The only obvious question one could ask in this situation -- Is it a new species of bird?
“When I first heard about the turkey/peacock hybrid I thought you might be pulling a joke on us,” Washington Fish and Wildlife biologist Howard Ferguson said.
“That's how unusual it would be if this thing happened. With further investigation, we actually went out to eastern, and we looked up the DNA - they are highly different.”
As it turns out, the possible “turcock” is genetically a pea-hen - or a female peacock - which is not a new species of bird.
“We all are very curious,” Ferguson said. “It'd be interesting to see to have a camera on these birds during breeding season. Does this bird interest the male turkey at all? Is the male turkey interested in this peacock? We have no idea.”
Definitive answers will be provided next spring as to whether the pea-hen mated and produced viable and fertile eggs. If that actually happened then there will be an official “turcock” species.
There are 20 unique chromosomes between the turkey and the peacock, so the scientific chances of viable and fertile eggs is nearly impossible.
But if nature finds a way, you'll know next spring.
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