Pigeons: what the haters (so everyone) don’t know

PIGEONS

WHAT THE HATERS (SO EVERYONE) DON’T KNOW

VERONICA GUARISCO, 2D

The wide variety of species on Earth is breathtaking, especially if we remember that they all originated from a unique one. However, one graceful creature rises above the rest, definitely a king among birds: the noble pigeon. You likely consider it good only for pooping on statues: since I’m writing an article about it, you would imagine that it’s not all (yeah, stay sure I’m not so crazy). In the pretty wellknown “On the Origin of Species”, Charles Darwin presented an idea that has turned science on its head. By the way, can you guess the animal he chose as his very first example in Chapter 1? It wasn’t the tortoise, the finch, or even the giant fossil armadillo he found during his journeys. He chose pigeons! These are the birds that got Darwin’s attention because underneath all that feathery fashion, they are a species that has evolved a lot. Thousands of years before they were eating old hotdogs buns out of the trash, these birds were found on seaside cliffs: as soon as cities sprang up they moved in because to a pigeon a building is just a cliff with better architecture. They are impressively suited to city life, on the other hand, we shouldn’t forget they have could conquer urban areas since we brought them there. The reason? We liked feeding them, but to

ourselves! In fact, from Egypt to Rome, to the early 20th century, the main roles of a pigeon were dinner or being bred into silly shapes from rich people. Over time, here and there a few of these domestic birds escaped and returned to “wild” life. Incidentally, they’ve never left cities. Watching pigeons pecking at the sidewalk, you might deduce they are not the smartest birds in the tree. For instance, they can’t solve puzzles like crows, they can’t talk like parrots and the pigeon’s brain is only about the size of a fingertip. Nevertheless, like most things in nature, there is more to the story. The major part of their skull is eyeballs: if they were the size of humans, their eyes would be as big as grapefruits. Those huge eyes have five color receptors, which compared to our three, let them see what we can’t even imagine. Pigeon vision is a bomb. Literally. During WW II, the psychologist Skinner tried to turn these birds into weapons. He trained the animals to keep an image centered on a tiny screen by pecking at it, then he hooked this up to a navigation system to load it inside of a bomb, to create explosive missiles piloted by kamikaze pigeons. He built several successful prototypes, however, the army never let it get off the ground. As well as this, they are so tightly bonded to their home, thanks to an incredible instinct, that we’ve used them as messengers for centuries before Paul Reuter founded a global news service. Different experiments have found that pigeons use visual maps, Earth’s magnetic field, the angle of the sun, and even smells to navigate. Surprisingly, when scientists knocked each of these senses out, some birds could still find their way home, thus they probably use senses we don’t know about yet. As far as I’m concerned, now you are aware enough of pigeons’ importance in Science and History (also cookery, but please do not make experiments at home, it can be dangerous), therefore I believe you won’t insult them anymore. Last information: have you ever wondered why, even though pigeons are everywhere, you’ve never seen baby pigeons? Well, they do exist and they are really ugly.