DETAILS
- Discipline
NH: ZOOLOGY: BIRDS
- Scientific Name
Ectopistes migratorius (Linnaeus, 1766)
- Common Name
Passenger Pigeon
- Place Collected
United States (place collected)
- Sex
male
- Age
adult
- Form
mount
- Dimensions
overall: 190 x 320 x 80 mm
- Collection
Poltalloch Collection
- Description
-
Passenger Pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, adult, mounted on an oval habitat base.
It was a species of pigeon that was once very common in North America. Indeed, it was one of the most abundant birds in the world in the 19th century. Migratory flocks of up to 2 billion birds were said to stretch over a mile wide and 300 miles long and take hours to pass overhead.
Good to eat, and easy to shoot, numbers plummeted in the 19th century and by the early 20th century it was reduced to a few captive individuals. It became extinct at 1pm on 1st September 1914, when the last captive specimen died in Cincinnati Zoo. This is one of the few species where we know the exact moment of extinction.
This specimen is part of the Poltalloch Collection, donated to the museum by Lieut Col G.I. Malcolm in 1952. The collection is believed to have originally been put together by his ancestor, David Orme (1728-1812), so could date from the early 1800s. - ID Number
Z.1952.69.9
- Location
Kelvingrove Creatures of the Past Gallery
- Terms