The last Passenger Pigeon, named Martha, died at the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914. Within a few decades, the once most numerous bird on Earth was gone.
Posted on 10/31/2010 5:11:44 AM PDT by Palter
The extinct Passenger Pigeon, once the most numerous bird species in the world, has had its closest living relatives identified by DNA extracted from museum specimens.
The Passenger Pigeon was a forest nomad, breeding in vast colonies and following sporadic crops of acorns and chestnuts around the dense deciduous forests of the eastern and central United States. the forests were once so vast that they could support tens of millions of the birds, which were known to form flocks so huge that they darkened the sky when dispersing. This made them easy prey for hunters' guns, and the greed and over-exploitation of hunters and wholesale destruction of their habitat led to their shockingly rapid extinction.
The last individual, named Martha, died in Cincinnati Zoo on 1 September 1914, though it was actually born and raised in captivity and the last wild bird was recorded in Ohio in January 1900.
Mitochondrial DNA from a separate organelle in the cell than the nucleus, which has its own rapidly-evolving genome making it useful for detecting evolutionary rates and relationships, was analysed from Passenger Pigeon specimens at three North American museums. It was compared to samples of the same gene segments from 79 other species of pigeon and dove. Not only did this reveal the relationships of the extinct bird, but it also showed that American columbids may have originated from a colonisation event from South-East Asia, probably arriving when sea levels were lower over the Bering Strait, prior to the Pleistocene.
The analysis also showed three clear Nearctic clades, probably indicating at least two separate colonisation events. However, the most basal clade in the Columbidae, the Columbina Ground Doves, is American, and it is therefore possible that pigeons and doves may have originated in the Americas, dispersed to Eurasia, and then dispersed back again.
Passenger Pigeon was previously thought to be most closely related to Mourning Dove, a familiar and common North American bird, but the new analysis has shown that it was in fact closer to Band-tailed Pigeon Patagioenas fasciata, and both are in an endemic New world sister group to the Eurasian Columba and Streptopelia pigeons and doves. Interestingly, Band-tailed Pigeon also shares a louse species with its extinct relative, further supporting the relationship.
However, the Passenger Pigeon was so different to all other columbids that it remains the sole representative of its own genus Ectopistes, a unique and diverged lineage that has now disappeared forever. It is, however, speculated in some quarters that DNA from museum specimens may one day be used to clone the species, but this is certainly unachievable for the foreseeable future. The story of the Passenger Pigeon remains one of the most chilling examples of what can happen to a robust and widespread species and habitat if they are exploited without restraint.
The full paper is cited as: Johnson, K P, Clayton, D H, Dumbacher, J P and Fleischer, R C (2010). The Flight of the Passenger Pigeon: Phylogenetics and Biogeographic History of an Extinct Species. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 58: 455-458.
I’d think again about wanting pigeons to come and eat acorns in your yard unless you really want your entire property to be coated with pigeon poop.
Some British seem like regular people, and some are just like the worst of our elitist twinkies. I enjoy seeing any of them taken down!
I find it telling that the birds ate CHESTNUTS. There was a massive die off of Chestnut trees due to a blight just before the passenger pigeon went "extinct". It's always portrayed as being the fault of hunters....but I'm betting that it had much more to do with a food source dying off.
They were banded tail pigeons.
I feel kinda bad because he had a wife and kids. But he really could be truculent and childish. He also ruined a perfectly good specification. The original specification had been developed by an American friend of mine and a British-educated Arab Ph.D., who was not-a-bad-guy. The original specification had (iirc) about 100 perfectly testable requirements. When this guy got through rewriting it, it contain statements like “like shall reflect the utmost in reliability, maintainability and state of the art technology.” Try verifying that statement. If I were to teach a course on writing good requirements, I’d single this one out as a prime example of a really, really bad one.
I’ve got them here in NM too. Usually pairs, unlike the flocks of white wings that charge through the forest.
I can understand them using a Chestnut tree[Huge] for a flock to habitat in. Eating acorns, sure, but eat a chestnut? Not exactly built to do that are they? Shrug.
Post us a photo. We’ll get right on the identification.
The species time was up. The American Chestnuts upon which the species relied as a primary food source is also gone.
I wonder if that is true. The chestnut devastation occurred after the pigeons in the wild were gone.
Dried acorns make a pleasant crunch when you step on them.
No single factor was responsible. It was more or less a perfect storm that wiped out the passenger pigeons. They lost food sources and habitat, and were over-hunted all at the same time.
“This made them easy prey for hunters’ guns, and the greed and over-exploitation of hunters and wholesale destruction of their habitat led to their shockingly rapid extinction.”
B.S.
I once did a test and was able to whack his 75,000 word procedures handbook down to 7500 words.
Took several days, but MY WORD.
We slipped my product back into the mix, and he immediately zipped it up to about 10,000 words ~ just an habitual turgifier!
The last Passenger Pigeon, named Martha, died at the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914. Within a few decades, the once most numerous bird on Earth was gone.
“Different to” is a British usage.
Where I come from good writing is measured by economy. This happened to be the specification for an airport surveillance radar, which was developed in the States (one state, actually, Massachusetts) and then manufacturing was moved up to Ontario, both for reasons of cost and exportability. The Canucks actually sold (and installed!) a unit in Tehran. I was on the floor in Ontario in 1994 when they lead a couple of representatives of the Islamic Republic around. I was at the display of a working unit we were using for integration and test. They brought these guys by to show them the display, and electronics (the antenna was spinning away on the roof.) I wanted to spit on them, but restrained myself. Unfortunately.
Anyway, all that frippery and BS must of sold well on the international market, but it goes over like a lead balloon with the pros, and they are pros, with the FAA.
Ditter, I bow to your unrelenting logic. It's just that I have so many I tend to leap at any opportunity, no matter the consequences, to be rid of them.
Surely there is some use for them, could they be used as a fuel of some kind, if so I'm rich!
I know first hand about pigeon poop. We had a house on Galveston Bay and the pigeons decided they liked the view from our roof. They roosted up there in good weather. When the wind blew or it rained the poop came down on the deck the yard the cars everywhere.
I think Galveston has a serious pigeon problem. The poop carries several diseases, can’t remember what they are but some of them are serious. Don’t wish for pigeons, how about hogs? What is that about a blind hog finding an acorn? That would bring other problems but you could end up eating the hogs. :D
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.