Bizarre Beasts: Pasenger Pigeon - August 09

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but I spent an hour of my life listening to Ms. Sarah Suta and friend discuss – among other things, but primarily that – the life and the extinction of the passenger pigeon. (It happened in 1914 – spoiler alert!) Therefore, let us talk about this bird.

The passenger pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, evolved about 5.33 MYA – that is a couple of million years before the appearance of the Australopithecus primates in Africa, and unlike them, the pigeon lived only in North America. Despite being, well, a pigeon, it did not look much like the feral pigeon/rock dove that is found in the cities worldwide – rather it looked more like a mourning dove, for example: it was relatively slick, streamlined, and with a long tail. A body shape adapted for long distance travel, put otherwise.

Off topic: the doves and pigeons are more varied than people realize it, but they can be sorted into two baseline groups: slender and bulky. The dodo was an extreme case, but the other members of its’ ‘tribe’, the Raphini, are also big and bulky, as far as flying birds go; on the other hand, the passenger pigeon was a member of the Columbini tribe, and just its’ relatives, it flew just fine; in fact…

…In fact, the life and the ecology of the passenger pigeon was defined by flight: it was a migratory bird, travelling the North American continent to avoid winter and to find food. Like the other pigeons and doves, this bird was primarily herbivorous, and ate fruits and berries, as well as grains, cereals, and seeds: food that is easily digestible and found mostly on the trees. That is important, again, because unlike the homebody dodos, the passenger pigeons were migrants. What next?

The passenger pigeon’s migratory lifestyle was its’ defining feature: for centuries, the native North Americans had the humongous flocks of those birds as a part of life. Did they eat the pigeon? Yes, obviously, but their hunting weapons were… simple enough for the natives to be incapable to dent the great flocks, plus the passenger pigeons were rather adapted to co-existing with the non-too-friendly native North American humans, so they were able to handle it. Then the European settlers arrived. Everything changed.

Native North Americans lived in a homeostasis with nature, they conceived themselves to be a part of it, and adjusted their attitudes, and lifestyles, accordingly. The Europeans never had this idea, and adjusted the natural world to suit their needs. In case of the passenger pigeon, it meant that the European settlers began to kill and eat them in bulk; in a matter of decades, (say, from 1850s to 1900s), the great flocks of the passenger pigeons were gone.

Could the settlers and their American descendants have co-existed with the passenger pigeons? Not how, say, Colossal Biosciences would deliver this idea: the great flocks of those migratory birds did decimate the crops of fruits, and grain fields, and the like, and they would return time and again, making farming, such as it was, hardly possible. Instead, the passenger pigeons would have to be managed, (think modern forestry), maybe domesticated, maybe not. People have domesticated pigeons, obviously¸ but they were the ‘Old World pigeons’ that belonged to an entirely different genus from the passenger pigeon, (it had no immediate relatives, BTW), plus those pigeons were domesticated to be served as messengers and mail carriers – at first; the elaborate domestic breeds that don’t look like pigeons and certainly don’t appear to be able to function in the wild came later, when the need in carrier pigeons began to decrease. (However, some still exist even today). Whether the passenger pigeon could have been domesticated and managed as the modern ‘domestic’ pigeon was, is unknown.

The modern ‘domestic’ pigeon has a stable feral population, but unlike the extinct passenger pigeon, it has a broader diet and much smaller flocks, and it has larger egg clutches and/or reproductive rates: the passenger pigeon’s population was so huge and so stable, at first, that the passenger pigeons managed their population growth slowly: they could afford to take ‘hits’ that would hurt the populations of their less numerous cousins. The passenger pigeons were even able to survive the depredations of the colonists and their descendants – at first, and then they did not.

The Americans did try to preserve and/or to manage the last passenger pigeon populations in the U.S., for various reasons – but they failed. In the 1890s-1900s the concept of nature conservation was too new to be successful, plus the perpetually migrating, (ok, almost perpetually migrating, but still), were not the easiest birds to manage. Now, in the modern times, the situation is different, (technically speaking), but the idea of bringing back the passenger pigeon is not being discussed, at least not in public.

Why? Aside from the practical point of view – the passenger pigeon was perfectly edible to humans – the birds were more colorful, beautiful, and natural than the modern RL feral pigeon/rock dove is. They can fit into the modern world more easily than the dire wolf and the moa birds. They are also easier to manage than the dire wolf and the moa birds, and – easier to create, perhaps? Colossal Biosciences are ‘recreating’ the moa by modifying the tinamou with emu genes, or vice versa. Whatever hybrid will emerge, if it is viable and non-sterile, it still will not be a moa.

…Of course, with a ‘recreated’ passenger pigeon it will be the same situation: it will not be the original passenger pigeon species that died out by WWI; it will be something entirely new. However, it will be easier to pass the bird as the ‘recreated passenger pigeon’ and it will be easier to manage. However, no – CB has focused itself on the moa and the dire wolf (and whatever else it is doing behind the scenes). Sad, really.

…But not as sad as me watching a pair of young women painting miniature plastic figurines of apparent passenger pigeons for an hour, (that’s how long they painted, not how long I watched), while quietly discussing the abovementioned info about the bird. They have read the Wikipedia article about it and that is it. They had a private conversation about it, painted some plastic, and put it into the livestream. Oh, and there was a Kickstarter involved that had people send Sarah, Aimee, and friends money for Sarah and Aimee to do the above. Suddenly, Lindsey Nikole does not seem to be so mercenary anymore, and the CB – not such frauds.

That, however, is a story for another time. See you all soon!

 

F4, 'Ironheart' +etc. - July 27

Disclaimer: real life sucks. First OO is gone, and then HH, so now king Hades has to call queen Persephone to help him deal with the double emergency. Now onto the F4-2025 movie?

Hard to say. RL was not idle recently and CB unleashed the host species of their upcoming to be resurrected giant moa species – the greater tinamou and the emu. Why? Because among the ratites, the tinamous are the closest relatives to the extinct moa, whereas the emu…

CB also proclaims that the emu is a close relative to the moa birds. It is not – the two ratite lineages were quite distant from each other. However, it is the biggest modern ratite (and modern bird overall) after the African ostriches, so it is reasonable to theorize that CB is going to ‘augment’ the emu DNA with that of the tinamous and see what happens. In case of the wolves, this strategy worked… supposedly. Lately the trio of Romus, Remulus and Khaleesi vanished from MM, you know? The point, however, is that for most people grey and dire wolves are just… wolves, they expect them to be externally similar to each other, so when they see… well, wolf puppies, they don’t really care just what kind of wolf puppies they are – if CB says that they’re dire wolf puppies, they’ll believe CB, period.

With the birds, it is more complex, especially with such a unique species as the South Island Giant Moa: physically, it is quite different from both the emu and the tinamous. Whether CB will augment an emu with tinamou genes, or vice versa, the result will not be a moa, even if CB will successful. What will It be, (and that is a big if), is another question…

In addition, yes, again, the emu is not the best candidate for a resurrected moa – the moa preferred to live in forests, and the emu lives on open plains instead. Even behaviourally, the potential new hybrid will not be like the original species. The cassowaries, who are the emu’s closest relatives, do live in the forests, but they are smaller than the emu, and much more aggressive. Naturally, CB will not have anything to do with them. What else?

Well, the F4 film. To me, it feels like a successful reworking of the 2000s F4 films, which worked. This puts ‘First Steps’ miles above the ‘Ironheart’ mini-series, which is forgotten already.

Why?

Because ‘First Steps’ is a soft reboot of sorts: it takes place in a completely different universe from ‘the sacred timeline’ with completely new characters – and it is a success. Now Disney/MCU can make more Marvel adventures in this universe with an occasional something or other taking place in the original MCU timeline as well.

‘Ironheart’, on the other hand, takes place in the MCU, just as Disney/MCU lose interest in it. ‘Ironheart’ is better than SW-2025, (but that is a low bar), but worse than 2024 ‘Kraven’. It is not a mash of two different movies, more like a failed case of having its’ cake and eating it too. ‘Ironheart’ fluctuates from being depended on Tony Stark and his legacy in the MCU world, to being completely detached from it. The cast, the crew, everyone else did not really know what they were doing, and they did not care about it either. The result? ‘Ironheart’ is almost forgotten by now, as is MCU itself by now – somewhat, but that is another story.

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!

CB and the giant moa birds - July 10

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. I was about to talk about ‘Ironheart’, perhaps, or the JWR movie, when Colossal Biosciences (CB) came back out of nowhere, and proclaimed that they are bringing back the giant moa birds. Pause.

Let us roll back to the dire wolf adventure – re-creating those mammals is already hard because they belong to a different genus, one that is separate from all of the genera of the modern canines, none of them, from the grey wolf to the grey fox of the Americas are close relatives of the dire wolf. Giving ‘primitive’ traits and characteristics to the modern grey wolf puppies does not make them dire wolves. Pause.

With the moa birds, the situation is different from the wolves’. See, the moa birds are part of the ratites, or Paleognath birds, a separate infraclass from the rest of the birds for they do not have the keel bone anymore… only not. One lineage does.

The tinamous of South America are enigmatic and little studied birds; they behave largely like the gamebirds of the rest of the world, (aside from Australia), and they can fly, however poorly. Yet, they are also ratite/Paleognath birds, and they are the closest modern relatives of the extinct moa birds. Silence.

Let us expand. All of the Paleognath birds are related to each other, but there are nuances. The African ostriches (two species) are a sister group to everyone else. Next are the America rheas (also two species), followed by the tinamous and the moa birds, and finally we have the extinct elephant birds of Madagascar and their closest living relatives – New Zealand kiwi birds on one hand, and the Australian emus and cassowaries on the other. Take a breath.

Now, with dire wolves, CB were able to swing it using the parallel evolutionary similarities between them and the modern grey wolves, and even that didn’t really float. With the giant moa birds, what candidates will CB use to ‘recreate’ them? Genetically their closest living relatives are the tinamous, but they do not behave or look anything like the giant moa birds did, so giving them the anatomical characteristics of the moa birds won’t work – the resulting mutations won’t be viable or beneficial most likely. Meanwhile, behaviorally, among the ratites, it is the cassowaries of Australia who are most like the giant moa birds are, but…

…But however the moa birds did behave, and we will never know because they became extinct because of the Maori before the Europeans could study them, the cassowaries are solitary birds with aggressive tempers who are not afraid of humans very much and who are known to attack them. Out of the two groups, the giant moa birds were bigger and more massive than the cassowaries… ok, the biggest two species of the giant moa birds were bigger and more massive than the cassowaries are, and so, if CB and co. will try to make bigger and more massive modern cassowaries, they just might end with an ecological disaster, and they don’t want that, hopefully.

On the other hand, Peter Jackson, the maker of the LotR and the ‘Hobbit’ movies seems to have invested into CB’s recreation of the giant moa birds, so now, CB does have to deliver something, at least on the level with the genetically modified dire/grey wolf puppies, or else there might be a lawsuit and some sort of a PR disaster for the company. Pause.

Do I care about CB? Not particularly. The wolf story was not a bad one; they could have just stuck with mammals and went along. Now they are off into the deep end, and with at least one celebrity along for the ride, they are likely to have a PR explosion in their faces – but they asked for it. Still, it will be interesting to see as to what will develop out of this statement of theirs – but it probably will not be a giant moa bird. (We do not really have any DNA of theirs, incidentally).

End