Thanksgiving is here, Thanksgiving is a major holiday comparable to Christmas for Americans, and all we foodies are staring at is the fat and oily roast turkey on the table... However, before we eat, let's wipe a handful of hara at the corner of our mouth and see what the story of this huge "foreign chicken" has.
The ultimate dream of the Maidu child is for his mother to roast a turkey for him to | Animation "McDull"
Why is Turkey called "Turkey"?
The turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is a large pheasant native to the Americas, and its English name is "Turkey". Yes, you read that right, this "Turkey" is that country "Turkey". Why do countries have the same name as chickens? This is actually a complete misunderstanding.
In the 16th century, Turkish merchants sold Numida meleagris, native to Africa, to Europe, and Europeans thought that since the chicken was obtained by the Turks, it was called "Turkey fowl". Somewhat later, Spanish colonists brought back domesticated turkeys from Mexico, which gradually spread throughout Europe.
Turkey is also a | with clear bones in poultry pixabay
Because turkeys and guinea fowls are similar in appearance, both are bald chickens with a stocky body, Europeans confused the two, thinking that turkeys were also a kind of guinea fowl, so they also called them "Turkey fowl" or "Indian turkey", which was later simplified to "Turkey". Who is to blame for this? It's not because both of you guys are bald... Today's English name for guinea fowl follows the name "Guineafowl" used by Portuguese traders to introduce them from West Africa, which literally translates to "Guinea chicken", and Turkey has inherited the name "Turkey".
The relationship between these two chickens is also reflected in their Latin scientific names: the scientific name of guinea fowl is Numida meleagris, and the scientific name of the turkey is Meleagris gallopavo, it is not difficult to see that the genus name of the turkey comes from the species name of the pearl chicken, which intuitively reflects how biologists at the time viewed this large American "pheasant".
Guinea fowl is actually much smaller than turkey, but who calls you both bald|? pixabay
The turkey species name gallopavo is also interesting. As we all know, the French call themselves "Gallic roosters", and in Latin "gallo" means "rooster"; "Pavo" means "peacock", the word is also the genus name of the genus Peacock, and the scientific name of the green peafowl is Pavo muticus. So the scientific name of turkey means: "guinea fowl like a peacock", which refers to the male turkey will open the screen like a peacock when showing off and courting.
Not guinea fowl, not spit chicken
Many sources say something like this when introducing turkeys: "Turkey, also known as spit chicken." "Silk" refers to the silk ribbon used by the ancients to hang peiyu or seals, and the spit silk chicken, as the name suggests, is "a chicken that can spit out ribbons". Is this rather ancient name an ancient name for turkey? After searching for "Tushuo Chicken", I found that the name appears in many ancient Chinese books.
For example, Tang's "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks":
There are birds in Nanshan of Yufu County... Sometimes the spit is several inches long, and the dan color is blazing, and the variety of silk is called the spit bird.
Ming "Compendium of Materia Medica":
Turkey...... The item has a sac, containing meat silk, often missing, every spring and summer sunshine will swing to the sun, the top first out of two green corners two inches, is the silk under Xu Shuqi's chin, long and wide, red and blue, the color is brilliant, and it is not visible when hesitating...
As mentioned earlier, turkeys are native to the Americas and were only introduced to Europe in the 16th century, and the 16th century was about the Ming Dynasty in China Chinese. Even if there are turkeys in China, where did the earlier records come from? Moreover, the "Compendium of Materia Medica" clearly writes: "Out of the Baxia Fujian Guangshan Mountains", which obviously means that the Tushuo chicken is a native bird from the mainland.
The bird drawn by American zoologist Daniel Giraud Elliot is the ancient Chinese version of the "spit chicken", who is it|? Wikimedia Commons
Then I looked in, and a more detailed record appeared. During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the court painter Jiang Xiting painted a book "Bird Tree", which refers to Western painting techniques, and the birds painted are extremely realistic. The book has a very detailed description of the "spit chicken":
Black eyes yellow halo, green cheeks, green beak, green beak roots, black hair from the top of the cheek to the back of the cheek, red top. The neck, back, and arm ochre are black and yellow, and there are round blue and white spots at the end of each hair like beads. Ochre belly, bluish and white spots, wing-tailed ochre nigra earthy yellow striae. The foot claws are like chickens, light beige red, with overhangs.
This description is not similar to the appearance of the turkey, and the "spit chicken" in the painting bears no resemblance to the turkey, it is actually a red-bellied horned pheasant (Tragopan temminckii).
The description of "spit chicken" in the above ancient books clearly points to two species of horned pheasants native to the mainland, the red-bellied horned pheasant and the yellow-bellied horned pheasant (T. Caboti), of which the yellow-bellied horned pheasant is distributed in the southeast of the mainland and parts of southern China, and the red-bellied horned pheasant is distributed in the vast area of southwest China. The males of these two species of horned pheasants have specially structured flesh lobes under the throat and behind the eyes, called "meat skirts" and "meat horns", respectively. The meat skirt and meat horn are usually shrunk and almost invisible, but they will expand and expand when they are in heat courtship, especially the meat skirt under the throat is red and blue after unfolding, bright and abnormal, and it looks like a piece of colorful silk spit out from the mouth, so the name "Spit Chicken".
The red-bellied horned pheasant is the genuine "spit chicken" | DickDaniels / Wikimedia Commons
The red-bellied horned pheasant | unfold the "ribbon" Beautiful China
The throat of the turkey also has layers of meat drops, and there is a long meat hanging above the beak of the male turkey, and its meat drop will change with the mood, turning from blue and white to red in a short time (calendar niang: crosstalk has the saying "foreign chicken changes color (shǎi) er", which refers to the meat drop that the turkey will change color), which is similar to the characteristics of the spit chicken recorded by the ancients "under the chin, long and wide, red and blue, and brilliant color", so some people far-fetched and installed this imported species." Spit Chicken" name.
"Who do you say is bald? I'm angry! Hum! "When the turkey is excited, the meat hangs red | pixabay
The yellow-bellied horned pheasant and the red-bellied horned pheasant, the two real "spitting chickens", have been listed as national first- and second-class key protected wild animals respectively, and still live freely in the mountains and forests, getting rid of the fate of becoming a "prisoner" of human beings.
How can you have children without a man?
Parthenogenesis, also known as parthenogenesis, is the reproductive mode in which the eggs of female animals can develop into normal new individuals without fertilization. This form of reproduction is widespread in insects, fish, reptiles, and there are even some species that have no males at all, relying only on females to continue the population.
But most animals, including all birds and mammals, still honestly practice sexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction is equivalent to recombining the genes of the parents in the offspring, so that the offspring produced have higher genetic diversity and are more likely to mutate, in the face of the changing environment, only by maintaining the diversity of species genes can there be a possibility of adapting to environmental changes.
The New Mexico whiptail lizard (Aspidoscelis neomexicanus) is all female, has no males, and relies on parthenogenesis to reproduce offspring | Greg Schechter / Wikimedia Commons
In some extreme cases, sexual reproduction can also become an obstacle to the continuation of the population, such as a female animal coming to a new habitat alone, where there are no males of the same species or related species, how can it leave offspring? Changed to ordinary birds and beasts, the bloodline of this branch will end from here, but if it is a female turkey, the script may have to be rewritten.
As early as the early 19th century, parthenogenesis was reported in domestic chickens, and it was later found that turkeys have the same skills, and they are more powerful than domestic chickens. In 1953, research statistics from the Batesville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland, USA, showed that 14% of the unfertilized eggs laid by the Beltsville Small White (a small breed of domestic turkey) could develop and hatch young turkeys. These little turkeys are all males and are able to mature and reproduce normally. Further selection of turkey breeds with parthenogenesis increased the hatchability of unfertilized eggs to 40%.
Turkey to turkey, endless (big mistake)... | Animation "McDull"
Male offspring produced through parthenogenesis have all genes identical to their mothers, except for sex, and can in fact be considered clones of their mothers. Some breeders use this method to purify the best breed of female turkeys, backcrossing the male offspring produced by their parthenogenesis with them to maintain their excellent traits - this "trait" usually refers to oversized breasts, after all, this is the main part of the turkey to eat!
White turkey pectoralis major. This part is too dry and does not meet the preferences of many Chinese | Public Domain Pictures
After hearing the legend of the turkey, let's look at the roast turkey on the table, will everyone have such a trace of respect for it? Now let's be thankful and enjoy the food that another continent has to offer!