#pigeon!!

[quixoticanarchy]

once again thinking about this guy at the pigeon museum who was giving a little presentation about pigeon mating habits or something, and takes one look at me and my partner and immediately goes "oh and pigeons can be GAY, too!!!"

[snakespirits]

could you tell me some facts about pigeons?

Indeed!

Where to begin...

Pigeons are an animal with a stable polymorphism, which basically means they can be lots of colors and these colors aren't just one off mutations (albinism, melanism, chimerism). Kinda like cats (black, orange, calico) but with lots of things!! a good resource for this are these two webpages.. https://www.angelfire.com/ga3/pigeongenetics/index.html and https://www.angelfire.com/ga/huntleyloft/Page1.html

So brown, red and blue are the three main body colors and each is dominant to another (except for brown). It goes like brown > blue > red > recessive red! brown pigeons are very rare.

THEN pigeons have wing genetics for the patterns. the basic pigeon people think of would be a bar pigeon but there are also the T-check, checker and barless; these also have a dominance model. The Pigeonetics website https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/pigeons/pigeonetics/ is a great game/resource that you can learn from

umm. So I'm not just talking your ear off about genetics some other fun facts! uh!

nicobar pigeons are the closest living relative to the dodo

the victoria crowned pigeon is the largest pigeon and it can be as large as a female turkey

pigeons live all around the world. look up pigeons/doves on ebird & you'll find so many cool things

the speckled pigeon / african rock pigeon is the reason pigeons (rock doves) have the t-check pattern! they were hybridized Ages ago (paper link: https://elifesciences.org/articles/34803)

aaand darker colored pigeons tend to survive in cities more. Why? Unclear. Hypothesies include that more melanin means pigeons can get rid of heavy metals better; that darker pigeons, being related to african pigeons, can retain heat better; that darker animals just are in cities more (this is true of other animals too! red morphs of animals, on the other hand, tend to the suburbs)

sorry. got excited loll

[quixoticanarchy]

pigeons are great to have as one of my favorite animals not in spite of how common they are but because of it. I see so many! theyre all over and you might find different cool varieties in different places and it’s just such a nice easy thing that makes me happy. you don’t get this with rarer or obscure or more limited-habitat favorite animals. like I never see jellyfish walking down the street. much less chance for free creature delight

[quixoticanarchy]

whenever the pigeon museum post gets notes people are like "omg op where's the pigeon museum?!? i need to go to the pigeon museum!!" and well i'm pleased to tell you the pigeon museum is in oklahoma & this post has been a trap to get you to come to the wretched state of oklahoma

[quixoticanarchy]

saw such a beautiful pigeon but it flew away unphotographed… life’s beauty is transient and fleeting and consigned to memory alone. etc

[quixoticanarchy]

WHERE ARE YOU FROM??? PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT THE PIDGEON MUSEUM!!!!!

hehehhehe i'm delighted with the pigeon museum enthusiasm!! the one i was talking about is in oklahoma in the US; the internet tells me there's also one in germany which looks neat? the oklahoma one is this little place that's part history museum, part art museum, part library (just books about pigeons, in different languages), part sports hall of fame, part war veterans museum (for pigeons' contributions in the world wars, mostly), and also there are live pigeons and you can hold them <33

[quixoticanarchy]

https://www.theguardian (dot) com/environment/gallery/2018/jun/01/the-new-york-pigeon-in-pictures-andrew-garn

I thought this was neat and maybe you will too--it's a street pigeon appreciation book!

oh incredible I love this !!

look at this guy he's a ready-made meme template