Megapode

Their name literally means "large foot" and is a reference to the heavy legs and feet typical of these terrestrial birds.

The distribution of the family has contracted in the Pacific with the arrival of humans, and a number of island groups such as Fiji, Tonga, and New Caledonia have lost many or all of their species.

[5] The birds are best known for building massive nest mounds of decaying vegetation, which the male attends, adding or removing litter to regulate the internal heat while the eggs develop.

Research suggests an instinctive visual recognition of specific movement patterns is made by the individual species of megapode.

Similar to other superprecocial birds, they hatch fully feathered and active, already able to fly and live independently from their parents.

[5] In megapodes superprecociality apparently evolved secondarily from brooding and at least loose parental care as more typical in Galliformes.

[9] Megapodes share some similarities to the extinct enantiornithes in terms of their superprecocial life cycle, though also several differences.

Brushturkeys can often be found in parks or gardens.
Australian brushturkey on its mound
This cross-section of a megapode mound shows a layer of sand (up to 1 m thick) used for insulation, an egg chamber, and a layer of rotting compost . The egg chamber is kept at a constant 33°C by opening and closing air vents in the insulation layer, while heat comes from the compost below.