The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources happened to catch an unusually-colored turkey on a trail camera in Richland County. The photo shared on social media shows the mostly-white turkey with black and gray markings on its lower body. DNR officials say if you see a wild turkey sporting some unusual colors, don’t worry — it’s just a phase, specifically a color phase. The turkey in the photo is an example of a “smoke phase,” where the bird’s feathers lack the usual amount of brown and reg pigments, so the animal appears mostly white or light gray with dark gray and black markings. Other wild turkey color phases include erythristic, when the bird's feathers have an excess of the pigment pheomelanin and appear mostly rusty-red, and melanistic, when an excess of the pigment eumelanin makes the feathers appear almost entirely black. The department said turkeys with similar unusual coloration are sometimes mistakenly assumed to be hybrids of wild and domesticated turkeys, but all of these color mutations are natural variations that occur in completely wild populations.
