That's a lot of bones! collecting data at the American museum of natural history (AMNH)

hey experimenters!

After my my little trip to costa rica, it was time for me to get back to business. About a month ago, I made arrangements with a collection manger at the American Museum of Natural History to see the pigeons in the specimen cabinets.

I was prepared for a big collection, but was still amazed by the sheer volume of specimens behind the scenes at one of America's most popular natural history museums.

 

some of the specimens of domestic pigeons

After walking the labyrinth of corridors that lead to the bird skin collection, I was lead to a large (theoretically) climate controlled room. from here, I was taken further down the hallway lined with floor to ceiling white cases filled with the hollow skins of what had once been living birds. Upon reaching the cabinet marked with the genus "columba" I thought there had been a mistake, two HUGE sections of cabinet where filled with rock pigeons!

(I would say two whole cabinets, but a few rock-pigeon relatives where also in the mix)

however, only three of what must have been at least 100 specimens where of any use to me, as I needed, recent, North American specimens of wild birds.

so where the other 97 or so pigeons? most where feral rock pigeons collected from other places around the globe, but some where a bit more interesting....

wild pigeons:

 

Columba livia neglecta (on bottom) is a subspecies of rock pigeon found only in the mountains of Central Asia. It has a shorter tail and is generally smaller than columba livia domestica, or feral pigeon (top)

 

Columba livia gaddi (left) is sleek of profile and tan of color compared to domestica (right) and is found from Azerbaijan to Afghanistan

 

the pale, long billed and longer-necked C. l. targia is a specialist of the African desert, found from Western Sahara to Sudan

 

(bottom) looking more like a mini domestica than other subspecies, C.l schimperi is found along the red sea from Egypt to Eritrea. This subspecies may have been kept in captivity by Ancient Egyptians along with C.l livia

 

(left) The original rock pigeon, C.l livia (yes, they use livia twice in the name) was likely the first bird tamed by man. Archeological records of pigeon domestication are found in it's home range of Iraq to the British isles. Pigeons where first bread by humans in mesopotamia (modern day iraq) and spread across the world along trade routes.

 

(top) I might have gotten you with this one! the bird beside C.l domestica is not a rock pigeon, but the very closely related hill pigeon, native to Central Asia.

domestic pigeons:

 

a model and an athlete: On the left, the frilly jacobin pigeon is bred mostly as an ornamental and show purposes. On the right is a racing pigeon, bred to fly up to 90 miles an hour on a good tailwind.

 

on the left is a feral pigeon, on the right is a domestic giant runt, the largest breed of pigeon. In life, a bird like this can weigh up to 2.5 pounds.

 

birds on the right where bred for racing and meat like the birds in the middle before becoming show birds like the on the left.

After hanging out in the skin collection and photographing pigeons for a while, it was time to head down into the basement where the jarred(wet) specimens and skeletons are kept. only 4 wet specimens where of use to me. I had better luck with skeletons, as it turned out that two whole drawers with about 20 skeletons each waited in the basement. All skeletons were of use to me and I got a whole google sheetload of data. After spending hours measuring all of the specimens, the collections manager wanted to show me something.

She took me to a locked cabinet in the hallway, I knew what this meant, it was an "extinct and endangered" cabinet, locked to protect the valuable specimens inside. what she pulled out, then let me hold was incredible, a large brown bone marked with a numerical code and a single word in tiny black script....

 

Dodo!

I was holding the tarsus of the world's most famous recently extinct animals! the tarsus! a bone I had been measuring all day on the long gone island pigeon's far more successful relative.

another famous extinct pigeon had it's bones resting in the sacred cabinet too, the less popular passenger pigeon. Much smaller and with far more plentiful bones, I could not help but take a photo of the two long gone bird's leg bones together