Rock Pigeon x Feral Pigeon hybrid?

Sarcocystis calchasi encephalitis in a rock pigeon.

A rock pigeon (Columba livia) caught in Akihabara, Tokyo, showed neurological symptoms, such as head tilt and circling. Pathological examinations revealed abundant Sarcocystic cysts in the skeletal muscle and myocardium with mild myositis, and numerous schizonts and sarcocysts with severe multifocal granulomatous T-lymphocytic infiltration in the central nervous system. A Sarcocystis calchasi-s...

Divergence, Convergence, and the Ancestry of Feral Populations in the Domestic Rock Pigeon

Domestic pigeons are spectacularly diverse and exhibit variation in more traits than any other bird species [1]. In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin repeatedly calls attention to the striking variation among domestic pigeon breeds-generated by thousands of years of artificial selection on a single species by human breeders-as a model for the process of natural divergence among wild populat...

Caudal duplication (dipygus) in a Rock Pigeon (Columba livia)

Congenital defects are those abnormalities present at birth that result from errors arising during development (Noden and de la Hunta, 1985). Congenital duplications are interesting among congenital defects because they are composed by two individuals. Multiple births most frequently result from fertilization of separately ovulated female gametes. However, complete or partial separation of clea...

Superstition in the pigeon.

Scottish pigeon fanciers

In a large scale clinical survey of Scottish pigeon fanciers, 277 people completed a detailed questionnaire and provided a venous blood sample. There were 29 (10.4%) who fulfilled the clinical criteria for pigeon breeders' disease used in the study and 84 (30.3%) who showed a significant serum IgG antibody response to pigeon gammaglobulin (4 pg/ml) and were considered to have been sensitised. I...