Melanin Shortage

Mike McDonald took this Rio Grande gobbler in northern Lampasas County, Texas, in April 2018 and pondered what causes discoloration in a turkey beard.

Dr. Tom responds: 

Thank you for your recent call and for sending the photos of the Rio Grande gobbler you harvested with a white or blonde beard. Wild turkey beards are composed of modified feathers often called filaments. Beards emerge from a papilla or sheath at the base of the neck within the midline between two feather tracts on the sides of the neck where it merges with the upper breast. Gobblers with multiple beards have more than one papilla. As the filaments emerge, they are covered with a waxy substance that makes them cream or rust colored near the papilla. The filaments are actually dark gray or black, a color caused by a dark pigment called melanin. The melanin also seems to give the bristles or filaments strength and flexibility.

Occasionally turkey beards will exhibit a short band of rust or orange across most or all of the filaments ranging from one-quarter to a half-inch in length. The bristles may be weakened at that point, making them more brittle and subjecting the beard to breakage or making it wear off more easily. Usually the break is clean and even, almost like it was cut with scissors. This tiger-striped appearance and subsequent breakage has given way to popular theories about “beard mites” or “beard fungus” espoused by some turkey hunters.

Research has shown no such issues with turkey beards. Microscopic examinations do not support the presence of “beard rot,” “beard mites” or any type of fungus. Instead, current thought among wild turkey biologists is that the pigment melanin is in short supply at the time when that portion of the beard develops. The lack of melanin allows the beard to be colored reddish, orange or blond for a period of time. Turkey beards grow at the rate of an inch or so every couple of months. The melanin shortage causing the change in color may be caused by a temporary dietary deficiency or inability of the gobbler to metabolize the nutrients needed to produce melanin.

This gobbler may have had a genetic predisposition to lacking melanin in its beard. In 40-plus years as a biologist working with and hunting wild turkeys, I have encountered beards “tiger striped” with reddish or amber bands, a few totally red beards, and, rarely, blond or white beards such as your gobbler displayed. In those years in the field, I have looked over thousands of gobblers. Most hunters do not have the opportunity to see too many examples of odd beards, so this gobbler provided you with, perhaps, a once-in-a-lifetime trophy.