Liverpool pigeon

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Liverpool pigeon
Caloenas maculata on a plaque in the Bulletin of the Liverpool Museum

Caloenas maculata on a plaque in the Bulletin of the Liverpool Museum

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Pigeon birds (Columbiformes)
Family : Pigeons (Columbidae)
Genre : Caloenas
Type : Liverpool pigeon
Scientific name
Caloenas maculata
( Gmelin , 1789)

The Liverpool pigeon ( Caloenas maculata ) is an extinct species of pigeon whose place of origin is still unknown today.

description

Illustration from 1823 by John Latham

The Liverpool pigeon was first mentioned in the work A General Synopsis of Birds (1783) by John Latham and described by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1789 . She reached a size of 32 centimeters. The wing length was given as 175 mm, the tail length as 126 mm, the beak ridge as 20 mm and the barrel as 33 mm. The plumage was deep bottle green with a few elongated feathers around the neck. The wing and back feathers were speckled with a cream colored sequin pattern. The tail had a cream-colored end band. Legs and feet were reddish. A hump was visible at the base of the beak. The Liverpool pigeon had short rounded wings. Due to the elongated neck feathers, it was considered by John Latham as a relative of the maned dove ( Caloenas nicobarica ). Walter Rothschild saw in it only an anomalous specimen of the maned dove, so that subsequent authors ignored this taxon for a long time. Apart from the neck feathers, however, the Liverpool pigeon bore no resemblance to the maned pigeon.

status

The place of origin and the reasons for the extinction are unknown. Hypotheses go in the direction that the species could have come from the Pacific, as Tahitian traditions from 1928 describe a green-and-white speckled bird called tītī , which naturalist David Gibbs (2001) suggested that this species could have been. In 1851 a juvenile specimen came into the collection of the 13th Earl of Derby at Knowsley Hall and is now in the World Museum Liverpool . A second copy, collected between 1783 and 1823, has been lost. In 2008 the Liverpool pigeon was added to the list of extinct bird species by BirdLife International .

literature

  • Errol Fuller: Extinct Birds . Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8160-1833-2
  • David Gibbs, Eustace Barnes and John Cox: Pigeons and Doves. A Guide to the Pigeons and Doves of the World . Robertsbridge, UK: Pica Press, 2001. ISBN 1873403607
  • Philippe Raust: On the possible vernacular name and origin of the extinct Spotted Green Pigeon Caloenas maculata . In: Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club, 140 (1), 2020, pp. 3-6

Web links