Painting
of the Liverpool
pigeon by Joseph Smit, 1898
One of the
world's most enigmatic mystery birds is the spotted green pigeon Caloenas
maculata, also known as the Liverpool pigeon due to the fact that its only
surviving representative is preserved at Liverpool's World Museum (a second one,
formerly present in the collection of Sir Joseph Banks, is now lost). So
mysterious is this lone specimen, which was first documented in 1783, that even
its original provenance is unknown, though some ornithologists have suggested
that it may have been collected in Tahiti or elsewhere in
French
Polynesia.
A
nicobar pigeon (© Dr Karl Shuker)
In the past, it
has been variously categorised as a valid species in its own right, or as a
freak, green-plumaged variant of the nicobar pigeon C. nicobarica from
southern Asia. There has even been speculation as to whether its Liverpool-ensconced representative may be a fake, created from chicken feathers by person(s) unknown during the 18th Century. Following recent analyses of DNA
extracted from two feathers derived from this latter specimen and
performed by a trio of scientists led by Dr Tim H. Heupink from Australia's Griffith University, however, it has
been confirmed as a separate species, closely related to the nicobar pigeon but
possessing its own unique DNA barcode. Their findings were published in the 16 July 2014 issue of the scientific journal BMC Evolutionary Biology (click here to access it).
Mauritius
dodo, life-sized model at London's Natural History Museum (© Dr Karl Shuker)
Moreover, it has
also been shown to be closely allied to the extinct Mauritius dodo Raphus
cucullatus and Rodriguez solitaire Pezophaps solitaria. DNA studies
like this are becoming increasingly significant in revealing the hitherto long-hidden
identities of anomalous specimens such as the Liverpool pigeon.
Rodriguez
solitaire, painted by Frederick W. Frohawk, from Lord Walter Rothschild's book Extinct
Birds (1907)
Indeed, as
commented upon by Dr Heupink: "This study improves our ability to identify
novel species from historic remains, and also those that are not novel after all.
Ultimately this will help us to measure and understand the extinction of local
populations and entire species".
The only known surviving specimen of
the Liverpool or spotted green pigeon, housed at Liverpool's World Museum (© Clemency Fisher/Wikipedia - Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license)
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