How Rock Pigeons Got Their Mullet

From the lecture today, Dr. Barbado showed the students different types of pigeons and their unique appearances. Luckily, I came across this article and thought it would be interesting to the readers about the rock pigeon’s genome.

Shapiro (a professor of biology at the University of Utah) and his collaborators have just decoded the bird’s genome. They mainly focused on a male rock pigeon from the Danish tumbler breed and two feral pigeons.The researchers lined up the genomes of birds with and without crests, to find the difference between two groups.

The researchers said, The gene acts like a switch for head crests, keeping feathers growing downward in its normal form and upward when mutated.

The genetic results also revealed some of the pigeon's root, showing the owl breeds (a group with short beaks) likely came from the Middle East, as they showed close ties with breeds known to have originated in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, Shapiro said.