Michigan State University researchers recently discovered a full skeleton of a passenger pigeon in a stuffed skin. Image: Michigan State University School of Veterinary Medicine/Pamela C. Rasmussen
The Michigan State University Museum recently discovered something it didn’t know it possessed — a full skeleton of a passenger pigeon.
You can even touch the rare skeleton of the now extinct bird – in a digital form, said exhibit curator Pamela C. Rasmussen. Viewers can enlarge and rotate the image of the skeleton on a touch screen.
The real skeleton is in a stuffed skin in the museum. The specimen was discovered while researchers from the museum worked with the MSU College of Veterinary Medicine to take computed tomography scans of passenger pigeons to measure their bones.
This is a rare occurrence, for most stuffed skins have very few bones
The Michigan State University Museum is featuring an exhibit on passenger pigeons and extinction. Image: Pearl Wong
in them, Rasmussen said. This discovery was especially surprising because the bird has been extinct for so long.
The scans are part of a new exhibit, They Passed Like a Cloud: Extinction and the Passenger Pigeon, that includes 3D models of passenger pigeons, fossils of other extinct species and success stories where species in danger of extinction were saved.
The once abundant pigeons used to nest in flocks of up to a billion birds around the Great Lakes region. The last large flock was reported in Petoskey, Mich. in 1878.
The birds suffered a mass extinction 100 years ago after people began hunting the giant flocks.
“I hope that people will recognize our impacts and think, ‘What can we do to have less sad stories,’” Rasmussen said.
The exhibit runs until Jan. 25, 2015.