A brightly colored turkey with blue-green iridescent feathers and eye-like spots on its tail. It lives in forests around the Yucatan Peninsula.
Its body feathers shimmer bronze-green. The tail has blue-bronze eyespots with gold tips, and males are brighter than females.
Ocellated Turkeys forage on the forest floor. They eat seeds and fruits as well as flowers and leaves. Where forests and fields intermingle, they also consume maize, soybeans and sorghum. Both wild and cultivated plants provide food.
A 2024 paper reported diets from two areas of Campeche, Mexico. Researchers examined 71 legally hunted birds, mostly males, collected during February–May 2013. They sorted and dried food from the oesophagus, crop and upper proventriculus of the 66 birds whose upper digestive tracts contained food.
They identified 22 plant taxa: 19 native plants and three crops. Seeds made up approximately four-fifths of the food’s dry mass; flowers, leaves and fruits were also present. Alongside prominent agricultural grains, the birds used plants from the surrounding forest, revealing the local mixture of food sources.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
BirdLife’s 2020 global assessment classified the species as Near Threatened, with a decreasing population. Hunting for food and trade, together with forest loss and fragmentation, are identified threats. Proposed actions include monitoring habitat change, hunting and trade, and protecting additional occupied sites.