CLEMSON, S.C. (AP) -- There's more to turkey than ending up on your holiday table, says expert and source of turkey trivia Tom Scott. Scott, chairman of the poultry science department at Clemson University, knows a great deal about the bird's pre-roasting pan existence, and offers some odd tidbits: The red, fleshy thing that hangs from a turkey's nose is called a snood.

Turkeys are smart. In the wild, they are wily, using keen senses of sight and hearing to evade predators.

They are, however, nervous. Their blood pressure is high, and spooking them can literally scare them to death.

A nest full of turkey eggs is called a clutch.

The turkey got its name by another of Christopher Columbus's naming errors.

Besides mistaking America for the West Indies, he thought the turkey was a peacock and called it "tuka,'' the Indian word for that other bird.

The black and brown bird Columbus saw, which symbolises the holidays, is commercially obsolete. Today's turkeys have white feathers before they're plucked; they were bred that way to eliminate the dark pin feathers that showed up on the previous model bird.

The homey vision of the roasted turkey on the family table is credited to Norman Rockwell paintings and World War II by Scott. In the 1940s, turkeys were inexpensive, not rationed, and could be grown in back yards.

Today's farm-raised birds are produced through artificial insemination. The broad-breasted birds are too large and heavy to mate otherwise.