BrokenWing Chronicles
Liverpool Pigeon
(Caloenas maculate)
Extinct


City display resurrects extinct pigeon

May 30 2008 by Laura Sharpe, Liverpool Daily Post

AN OBSCURE, mysterious bird which earned the name the Liverpool Pigeon has gone on display – just one week after it was declared extinct.

The Spotted Green Pigeon (Caloenas maculate) has been affectionately named after the city where it has been stored for the past century.

One of only two examples ever recorded, the pigeon has been brought up from the basement of World Museum Liverpool to go on proud display in the natural history centre.

The other specimen has been lost for hundreds of years, leaving the Liverpool Pigeon as the only original description specimen.

Standing 32 cm high with a rounded-wing length of 175mm, the pigeon has already attracted interest from pigeon experts from Cambridge and Manchester, and the head of Birdlife International. It was this global conservation partnership which officially added the bird to its extinct list only last week.

The Liverpool Pigeon is thought to have been collected between 1783-1823 and belonged to ornithologist General Davies.

The 13th Earl of Derby then bought the pigeon from Davies and it remained in his collection at Knowsley Hall until his death, when Liverpool Museum acquired the specimen.

Clem Fischer, curator of vertebrate zoology at the museum, said: “There was a lot of interest once the pigeon was classified as extinct last week, so we wanted to put it out on display once again.”

Experts believe the bird is likely to have been collected by Sir Joseph Banks, who travelled around the Pacific with Captain Cook.
The Link
City display resurrects extinct pigeon - Liverpool Daily Post.co.uk

The Liverpool Pigeon was first mentioned in the work A General Synopsis of Birds (1783) by John Latham and scientifically named by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1789. It reached a size of 32 centimetres. The wing length was 175 mm, the tail length was 126 mm, the culmen was 20 mm and the tarsus was measured with 33 mm. The plumage was deep bottle green. The neck was characterized by elongated feathers. The wing and back feathers were spangled cream coloured. The terminal band of the tail was cream coloured too. Legs and feet were reddish. On the base of the beak was a knob. The Liverpool Pigeon had short rounded wings. On basis of the elongated neck feathers John Latham assumed a relationship with the Nicobar Pigeon and Lord Rothschild regarded it as just an aberrant specimen of the Nicobar Pigeon. It was probably Rothschild's influence that the Liverpool Pigeon was often overlooked by subsequent authors. Notwithstanding the Liverpool Pigeon was very different to the Nicobar Pigeon.
The Link
Liverpool Pigeon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia