Found: hideout of some of the last primordial pigeons
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT
01 July 2022
Rock doves on some Scottish islands show almost no sign of having interbred with domestic pigeons.
The relatively long, slender bill of this rock dove from the Outer Hebridean islands of Scotland are characteristic of feral pigeons’ ancestors. Credit: W. J. Smith et al./iScience
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Charles Darwin developed his theory of natural selection in part by studying a form of artificial selection: the nineteenth-century rage for pigeon breeding, which created a wealth of fantastical varieties of pigeon (Columba livia). So widespread was pigeon fancying that it seeded the world with escaped domestic birds and their feral descendants, which then hybridized with their wild ancestors, the rock doves.
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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01780-2
References
Subjects
Conservation biology
Subjects
Conservation biology More
