May 27, 2025 • 30 mins
Sure, they nuzzled their way into Mike Tyson's heart (and Nikola Tesla's, and Bert's from Bert and Ernie!), but how intelligent are pigeons? Have scientists really trained them to read? Did they actually play a role in discovering the Big Bang? And why are they so darn good at finding their way home? Plus: Are catfish their new nemesis?
This episode originally aired on July 11, 2019.
Photo via Sneha Cecil on Unsplash. Thanks, Sneha!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio. Guess
what Will?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
What's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Did you hear about that pigeon that sold at auction
for over a million bucks?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
You know, I know you may find this surprising, but
I actually don't keep up with the world of pigeon auctions.
But but seriously, though, did somebody actually pay a million
dollars for a pigeon?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
It's actually slightly better than that. Somebody paid one point
four million dollars for a pigeon, and they did it
on this site. It's an auction site called Pippa, which
is short for Pigeon Paradise, which almost makes all of
us better. But to be fair, this was no ordinary bird.
This high priced Belgian pigeon is actually an esteemed champion
(00:46):
racer and his name is Armando. He's five years old.
He's widely considered the best of the best long distance
pigeons in the world. So for the buyer, having a
champion bird as young as Armando means plenty of chances
to breed him and to hopefully pass on his traits
to future flyers.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
You know, I actually don't think I realized that investing
in pigeons could be this lucrative.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I know you should have got into it years ago. Kid,
most of us don't give pigeons nearly as much credit
as they deserve. I mean, the ones we're used to
seeing can look drab or dirty. But the truth is
pigeons are exceptionally smart animals and they've been using that
brain power for the good of mankind for thousands of years.
So in light of that, I thought we could use
today's episode to give pigeons their due finally, from their
(01:28):
roles in scientific breakthroughs to all the times they delivered
mail for us. So there's a lot to cover. Let's
dive in.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and always I'm joined by my good friend
mangesh Hot Ticketerter. Now on the other side of that
soundproof glass showing off his dance skills by doing the
cou coo pigeon. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil,
and I have to say Bert may have invented this
dance and may have made it famous on Sesame Street
back in the seventies. I think it was, but Tristan,
(02:19):
I don't know about you mego, I feel like he's
perfected it.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
He really has, you know, gave actually sent me some
research on this on doing the pigeon And apparently in
the original opening, Burt is just hanging out watching home
movies of pigeons projected on his wall, and then a
few seconds into the footage, he tells the viewer, I
love pigeons more than anything else in the world besides oatmeal,
and then he busts out doing this whole choreograph, dance
and routine, and I just don't remember any of that,
(02:43):
but it sounds so good.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well, I can't speak to his oatmeal obsession, but Bert's
right about pigeons. I mean, they are much cooler than
we think. Just as an example, I was reading this
week that pigeons are actually capable of understanding abstract concepts
including space and time. Are you with me on this?
It's pretty interesting, So it's definitely not something that you'd
guess just by looking at them. But a couple of
(03:06):
years back, there was this team of scientists at the
University of Iowa that showed just how smart pigeons really are.
So the team tested a group of pigeons by placing
them in front of computer screens, and then they would
show them one of two lines, either this six centimeter
line or a twenty four centimeter line, and each of
the lines was paired with its own symbol, So anytime
(03:27):
the pigeons saw a line, they were supposed to peck
the symbol that corresponded with the correct length. So whenever
the birds got it right, the scientists fed them this
treat is a way to reinforce that they had chosen,
you know, the correct answer on this.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Which shows that pigeons can tell the difference between different
line lengths. But you said pigeons perceived time as.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Well, right, Yeah, So this is actually where things get
really interesting, because the scientists tested the pigeons not only
on the length of the lines, but also on how
long they were displayed for, so either two seconds or
eight seconds, and the results showed that pigeons connect the
concepts of space and time in this really interesting way.
So whenever the birds saw a short line displayed for
(04:06):
eight seconds, they would peck the symbol meant for a
long line. Because the line had been displayed for a
longer period of time, the pigeons actually judged it to
be longer. In length than it really was. And this
way of thinking also persistent when the birds were tested
on long lines being displayed. So anytime the pigeons saw
a long line displayed for just two seconds, they would
(04:27):
peck the symbol meant for an eight second duration. Because
the line was longer in length, the pigeons thought it
existed for a greater amount of time.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
So that would mean pigeons actually perceived time in relation
to space, right, which is what humans do, like using
the number of people in a line to gauge how
long a weight might be, for instance.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, that's exactly right, And studies have shown that elephants
and a few other primates tend to connect these concepts
as well. The only thing weird here is that pigeons
actually lacked the part of the brain that processes space
and time that other animals have. So pigeons are making
these same abstract connections that we are, but they're doing
so through some other method that we actually haven't figured out.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yet, which is pretty amazing. It actually reminds me of
this study I read about a while back where this
Japanese psychologist who's named Shigeru Watanabe. He trained a bunch
of pigeons to distinguish between paintings done by Picasso and
one's done by Monet, and the birds got so good
at recognizing the two different styles that they could even
sort out works of Cubism and Impressionism done by other artists.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
It kind of makes you wonder if they preferred one
style over the other when they were looking at.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
I mean, it's funny because the same researcher later conducted
a different pigeon experiment where he trained a group of
them to judge the artwork of elementary students. And apparently
he showed the birds two dozen paintings made by students
in Tokyo, and he taught the pigeons which of the
paintings could be considered good and which ones should be
labeled bad. I mean he did this by taking the
grades assigned by the school's teachers and a panel of
(05:54):
other adults. And anyway, once the pigeons had a grasp
on what made a good painting or a bad painting,
they were presented ten new paintings, and amazingly, the pigeons
were able to correctly identify which of these paintings would
get low marks by the panel and what's interesting is
that the findings suggests that pigeons can naturally categorize things
based on shape, color, and even texture, which is impressive
(06:16):
because you know, not a lot of other species have
that trait.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, that's true. I guess it's one more unexpected thing
we have in common with.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Them, Right, and this list keeps getting longer. Apparently there's
one more thing. Pigeons are the only non primates we
know with ability to recognize letters. So in a twenty
sixteen study this comes out of New Zealand, a team
successfully trained four pigeons to recognize dozens of English words,
including whether or not they were spelled correctly, and the
smartest pigeon in the group learned to staggering fifty eight words,
(06:44):
which it was able to distinguish from roughly one thousand
made up words. In contrast, the dullest pigeon, or maybe
the least motivated of these birds, still managed to build
an impressive twenty six word vocabulary during its time of
the lab.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
All right, so these birds weren't actually reading the words, right,
They they didn't learn what the words meant or anything.
They just memorized what the words look like. Is that right?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, that's right, So they didn't have the meanings. It
was just spellings. But you know, wild pigeons are smart
enough that they can learn all these neat tricks. It's
not like they're ever really called upon to be art
critics in the wild. And at the end of the day,
it does sort of seem like pigeons have all these
powers of perception, but maybe aren't living up to their
potential in the wild.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I mean, but there's got to be a reason that
they're capability these skills when you think, yeah, I mean, it's.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
True biologically, but in all the experiments we mentioned, the
pigeons were kind of making distinctions based on things that
humans taught them, like impressionist art has all these features,
or the word banana looks in a spell like this.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, I mean, I can imagine there are cases where
recognizing visual patterns might help a pigeon, you know, forage
for food or a beda predator like and maybe one
notices their nest isn't the way they left it and
that tips them off that something dangerous is in the
area or something like that. But going back to what
you said about humans guiding and rewarding pigeons behavior, what's
(08:00):
funny is that's something we unconsciously do, like including outside
the laboratory setting. For instance, back in twenty eleven, there
were these two researchers in Paris, and they discovered that
pigeons can remember the appearance and behavior of specific people.
So here's how it went. Over the course of multiple sessions,
these two researchers went to a local park and they
(08:21):
fed this same flock of pigeons. So the first time
they go out, one researcher fed the birds and then
just stood there while they ate this food. I Meanwhile,
the other researcher put some food down and then immediately
turned hostile and chased the pigeons away. I'm sure everybody
else in the park was enjoying this. But the researchers
then repeated the experiment again and again, except during the
(08:42):
subsequent visits, neither of them chased away the pigeons. And
here's the thing. The pigeons actually remembered which researcher had
been nice to them and which one had showed them away,
And so whenever the researchers returned, the pigeons continuously avoided
that researcher who had shunned them. In the first place,
even though he hadn't done anything like that on any
other occasion.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Huh, that's pretty interesting. So what kind of like visual
cues were the pigeons picking up, Like was the hostile
researcher bigger or more intimidating or facial hair like, what
was the distinction?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, when I was reading about this, that was what
I had assumed as well, is that maybe one researcher
just look less threatening or was wearing more attractive color
or something like that. But they actually accounted for all
of this. In the experiment. The researchers were the same sex, age, build,
skin color, They dressed similarly. It's true that each wore
a different colored lab coat, but you know, I mean,
(09:37):
they also switched lab coats on different visits, and the
pigeons could still always tell which researcher had been hostile
on that first encounter. So the most likely explanation for this,
according to experts, is that pigeons recognize the researchers by
their faces. So not only does that show how pigeons
might use their perceptive powers in the wild, it also
(09:58):
shows that pigeons are really smart about which visual information
to keep track of. Like, you know, take the different
colored lab codes for instance. It seems like the obvious
feature to remember, like since a lab code would have
you know, covered like ninety percent of their body. Yeah,
but it's like our version of feathers, you would think
at least. And yet the pigeons zeroed in on the researchers'
(10:20):
facial traits, which is something that couldn't easily be changed
day to day. And so according to these researchers, that
distinction is likely something pigeons have picked up on, you know,
over their years of living in cities and around other humans.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Which makes a ton of sense. And I'm actually glad
you're bringing up that city connection. We've talked a lot
so far about the science of pigeons, So what do
you say we change gears in and talk a little
pigeon history and how they came to cities in the
first place.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
That sounds good. But before we get into that, let's
take a quick break.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
And you're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking
about all the amazing things you never knew about the
humble pigeon, And speaking of which, one thing I was
surprised to learn this week is just how far back
our relationship with pigeons actually go. For instance, archaeologists have
(11:16):
uncovered figurines, mosaics, and other works of art depicting pigeons
at dig sites in modern day i Raq, and those
artifacts are thought to date as far back as forty
five hundred BCE. There's also evidence that pigeons were a
staple food in the Middle East and Europe for thousands
of years, and when you take all of that together,
it's likely that the common rock pigeon, which is the
(11:36):
species you find in most cities, may have been the
very first bird that humans domesticated.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
And if I remember it, did that happen mainly because
pigeons were an easy way to source meat or something.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Well, I think that was certainly their main appeal at first,
while game was often seen hard to come by in Mesopotamia,
so these protein rich rock pigeons would have been a
godsend in all likelihood, though some hungry ancient farmer probably
noticed the bird's milling around his crops and decided it
would be better if he let the birds roost on
his farm rather than drive him away. But one of
the side effects from spending so much time in close
(12:07):
quarters was that humans started to take liking to the birds,
and not just the way they tasted. Against all odds,
humans started seeing reflections of their own humanity and pigeons,
for instance, Unlike other animals, the pigeons were monogamous and
couples working together to raise their offspring. They were seen
as intelligent and fiercely protective when necessary, but also peaceful
(12:28):
and calm when left to their own devices. And all
these cultures kind of adapted the pigeon as a religious
symbol or a deity as a result. For example, there
are three different goddesses that were symbolized by the pigeons, ishtar, Aphrodite,
and Venus, which spans Babylonia and Greece and Roman culture.
And in Christian iconography, which I know a ton about,
(12:50):
the pigion is used to represent the Holy Spirit, or
at least that's what I read now.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
I know we probably have a lot of listeners thinking
here that you're getting your birds mixed up, because didn't
those religions use doves as symbols, not pigeons.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
So prepare to have your mind blown, because scientifically speaking,
the words dove and pigeon refer to the same animal.
They're actually one of three hundred eight different bird species
in the columbide family.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
All right, So you're telling me that the pure white dove,
a universal symbol of peace, is really just another kind
of pigeon.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
And vice versa. The gray rock pigeon you saw in
the park the other day is also known as a
rock dove.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
All right, So what about the birds themselves, Like, how
did every city in America wind up overrun by pigeons? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I mean overrun's actually a good word for it. Rock
pigeons are actually an invasive species. They were originally native
only to Eurasia and northern Africa, but that changed in
the early sixteen hundreds when European settlers like the French,
introduced the birds to North America for the very first time,
and the domesticated birds have been brought along as a
source of food or in some cases, just to be
(13:56):
raised as a hobby. But somewhere along the way, many
of them escaped to cities and made new homes from
themselves on the ledges of buildings, which probably reminded them
of the cliffs back home that they'd nest in the
wild on. And from that point on, pigeons became a
fixture in American towns and cities, really thriving in parts
because pigeons aren't picky eaters. They don't have special diets
(14:18):
like many other birds, so whatever trash or leftovers they
found on city streets that kind of suited their taste
just fine.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Which I don't know why I always think about this quote,
but there was that thirty Rock line where Tracy Jordan
sees a pigeon eating trash and he just goes stop
eating people's old French fries. Pigeon have some self respect,
don't you know? You can fly, which is so good.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
But that lack of self respect has benefited them over
the years. The world pigeon population is estimated at four
hundred million, with seven million pigeons living in New York
City alone. That's almost a bird for every New Yorker
minus the bronx.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I was going to say, the population in the area
is about that. That's pretty crazy. And all those birds
in the US are descended from on that initial crop
of European runaways.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, they're all imported, but to be fair, that wasn't
always the case. So when rock pigeons were first brought
to American chores, in the seventeenth century, the continent actually
had its own thriving indigenous pigeon species, and that's the
passenger pigeon. And according to mental Floss, as many as
five billion passenger pigeons lived here during the colonial era,
accounting for somewhere between twenty five to forty percent of
(15:25):
all birds in the entire country. However, as you probably know,
that's not the case anymore. Over, hunting and habitat loss,
all of that kind of brought an end to the
passenger pigeon in the early twentieth century, with the last
of their kind, this domesticateid female named Martha, passing away
in nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
All right, this is probably the strangest transition that I'm
going to make today, but you queued it up so
nicely for me. So, speaking of dead pigeons, one thing
I've always wondered is, if New York is so chock
full of them, then how are there not dead ones
everywhere you look?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Like?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
At least, not that I'm complaining about this, but if
you have thought about that.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
You know I haven't thought about it. But now I'm
curious what you learn, Like, did you get an answer
for this?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Well? It turns out that pigeon corpses really are something
of a rarity in American cities, and the biggest reason
for this is that the sheer number of predators that
pigeons are up against in urban areas is greater than
you would think. Like, as someone at the Smithsonian once
put it, rats, cats, raccoons, foxes, possums, they all love
them some pigeon, is what they said.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
That is Sasha Smithsonian thing Smithsonian. So you're saying most
pigeons get eaten up by predators, But what about like
the old timers. I mean, there have to be some
pigeons that make it to old age. So where did
those guys end up?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Well, you're definitely talking about the minority here. I mean,
most wild pigeons survive for five or six years on average,
and that's compared to fifteen years or even longer in captivity.
So the ones that aren't eaten, like the lucky ones,
who have a lot more control over their deaths, they
tend to choose these peaceful nooks and crannies for their
final resting places. So maybe the air ducts of a
(17:01):
building or the corner ledge of a skyscraper. Some whether
it's you know, not quite as visible.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
So I guess it really does depend on where you look.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, I mean, you've got to really want to find
a dead pigeon. I guess.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It's a heck of a scavenger. But you know, the
whole time we've been talking about this, I keep thinking
of that story about Nixon's inaugurations. Do you remember this one?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
I don't think I do remember. This.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Apparently had a tough go at his first inauguration in
nineteen sixty nine, like the Vietnam War was in full swing,
and Nixon's motorcade wound up being pelted with tomatoes and rocks.
So when his second inauguration came around in seventy three,
Nixon remembered how messy things had gotten the last time,
and he wanted to take every possible precaution to avoid
another embarrassment. And this is how far he went. Right.
(17:45):
He had his people paint the branches of trees along
the parade route with this special chemical called roost no more.
It was this guy chemical that was supposed to make
a pigeon's feet so itchy that it wouldn't want to
above the motor kit. I guess, And yeah, and obviously
he was trying to avoid droppings falling on the car.
(18:06):
But as you can probably tell about the fact that
I'm telling you this story, things did not go as planned.
So for starters, the pigeons didn't mind the itchiness of
roofs no more, I guess. And what's worse, they didn't
mind the taste of it either. So so many pigeons ate
this highly toxic paste that the day of the parade,
the entire route was like littered with dozens of dead
(18:27):
and dying pigeons, which is so much worse than dirty windshields.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Oh no kidding. Can you imagine being there? That would
have been pretty brute, so weird. All right, Well, now
that we've seen the time when pigeons and humans didn't
get along so well, I feel like we should take
a look at a few examples of the opposite, you know,
the times when pigeons and people lived in perfect harmony.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah, let's do that, But first another break.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Welcome back to part time genius. Somego. I know it
can be dicey to try and pin down the etymology
of a phrase. Any idiom you think of can probably
have a half dozen or so false origin stories. But
there is one that I came across this week that
was just too interesting not to talk about it. So
you've heard the term stool pigeon.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Before, right, sure, like an informer or rat or whatever.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
That's right. And it's kind of a strange phrase when
you think about it, because number one, how does a
stool fit into any of this? And number two, pigeons
aren't that talkative and you know, as far as birds go,
they're actually pretty quiet.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
So I hadn't thought about this before, but I'm pretty
curious where does the term actually come from.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Well, the working theory is that the phrase is this
throwback to an old sixteenth century hunting practice where pigeons
were used as decoys to lure in larger birds. As
for the stool part, there are a couple of options here.
One is that these decoy pigeons were tied to actual stools,
like the idea of being that the live pigeon would
flutter in place and catch the eye of these other animals.
(20:02):
And then the other option is that stool is really
a corruption of this word stole, which is an old
word for tree stump. It's spelled stoa l e. And
in either case of the stool was whatever you tie
the decoy pigeon to, and then sometime in the mid
eighteen hundreds, Americans started applying the term to a different
type of decoy. Those would be these police informers who
(20:25):
hung around the criminal world or the criminal underworld. Really,
and I'm not sure who first made that connection or why,
but that doesmv where it might have come from.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Well, pigeons may not be very talkative themselves, but they
are pretty amazing when it comes to delivering other people's messages,
and that's thanks to their innate sense of direction. You know,
pigeons can find their way back home from pretty much anywhere,
even if scientists still haven't figured out how they do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I actually remember we covered some of these theories way
back in that Superhero Animal episode, So if you guys
are curious about that, definitely check it out.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Definitely. And despite all the mystery around their navigational skills,
the reality is that humans have been using pigeons as
messengers since at least as far back as three thousand BCE.
The ancient Greeks used trained pigeons to communicate the results
of the Olympics, and as you might recall, from our
Genghi's Kan episode, the Mongols developed a whole pigeon based
(21:19):
postal system to help connect the growing empire.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, and from what I was reading this week, they
weren't the only ones who put pigeons in charge of
their post. So the birds were apparently used to carry
mail in the Middle East. This was as far back
as the fifth century BCE, and pigeon posts still existed
in some regions until as recently as the early twentieth century.
You take New Zealand's Great Barrier Island for instance. They
(21:43):
relied on a handful of competing pigeon postal services for
the better part of a decade in the late eighteen hundreds,
and since the island is about sixty miles away from
the mainland train pigeons were the fastest way for residents
to communicate back and forth. They even issued these special
stamps that were only valid for pigeon posts and instantly
They're believed to be the first examples of airmail stamps
(22:05):
in the world.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
So what about telegraphs, though, weren't those around in the
late eighteen hundreds?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
They were, but you know, even with that, service was spotty,
and the birds were pretty resilient. Like in wartime telegraph
wires could be easily cut and you never knew, you know,
who might be listening in on this, you know, if
they were kind of tapping the line or something. So
pigeon messengers became this crucial means of communication. Actually, one
famous instance comes from a carrier pigeon named cher Ami
(22:32):
that flew for the US Army in France. This was
back during World War One. Now, Shaami delivered twelve important
messages during his military career, but on his final mission,
this was October of nineteen eighteen, the pigeon was shot,
actually shot both in the breast and the leg by
enemy fire. And despite this injury, Sharami flew back to
his roost with the message capsule still tied to his
(22:56):
wounded leg.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
It's just unbelievable, which is crazy, but what the message said.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
It was from a battalion of one hundred and ninety
four soldiers who had been isolated from other American forces,
and people just assumed that they were dead. And so
thanks to share on me, the army learned of the
soldiers whereabouts and they were able to get them to
safety back behind American lines. And I mean, I know,
in the bird's mind he wasn't trying to rescue a
(23:20):
bunch of soldiers. He just wanted to make it back
home alive. But I mean, it's still pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I mean, it is a little surprising. The enemies were
like clever enough to slice telegraph wires, but they didn't
think to like bring in a few hawks to like
feed on the pigeons and disrupt the communication. It feels
like a simpler solution. But you know, here's another thing
I had no idea about until this episode. Do you
know that two pigeons unknowingly helped establish the Big Bang theory.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I hate to ask this question, but are we talking
about the sitcom or like the model of the universe,
because one of these seems way more plausible than the.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Other, so weirdly, it is the latter. Before I get
into how the pigeons fit into this, let me give
some quick background. So back in nineteen sixty four, two
scientists in New Jersey, Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias, were
experimenting with their radio telescope and they were trying to
measure the minimum brightness of the sky. But to their dismay,
(24:11):
something was interfering with their readings, and whatever it was,
it was producing a pronounced hissing noise. Now spoilers, what
they actually heard that day was an ancient cosmic background radiation,
or as Smithsonian calls it, quote and echo of the
universe at a very early moment after its birth. So,
although they didn't know this at the time, Wilson and
Penzeus had just found what would ultimately become the first
(24:34):
proof for the Big Bang theory. And in the moment,
though the men weren't sure what they were hearing. They
thought it could be a stray signal from nearby New York,
or maybe their equipment was faulty. It really could have
been anything, but at one point, the most likely suspects
were actually a couple of pigeons that had set up
shop in the antenna array, and when the scientists discovered
(24:55):
the bird's roost, their hopes were dashed. It was starting
to look like this hissing sound was really just this
embarrassing revelation that it was a couple of pigeons mucking
about their instruments.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
I kind of love that this is what it boiled
down to, Like, it's either the afterglow of the birth
of the universe, or you know, some birds just going
into the bathroom. It's one of the other. Who knows,
I know.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
But Wilson and Phentzias couldn't rule it out, like they
had to get to the bottom of this. And so
here's how Robert Wilson later described what they did. Quote,
we took the pigeons, put them in a box and
mailed them as far away as we could in the
company mail to a guy who fancied pigeons. He looked
at them and said, these are junk pigeons and let
them go. But before long they were right back again.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Wait, so the same pigeons came back in like after
being mailed across the country.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, because they have those homing systems, so they can
find their way back from thousands of miles away or whatever.
But you know, thankfully, the scientists were eventually able to
get the array cleaned out, and after a year or
so of experiments, they concluded that the hiss they heard
was indeed cosmic radiation and not defecating pigeons. The birds
confusing contra bbution to history, though, hasn't been forgotten. And
(26:02):
if you go to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
today you can see the actual metal trap that Wilson
and Penzius used to trap the squatter pigeons some fifty
five years ago.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
That is quite the honor, and I feel like a
well deserved one. So what do you say we end
on that note and get right into the fact off.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
So here's a quick one. Because birds such as pigeons
have a much higher threshold for detecting movement, they would
likely see a movie shown at today's industry rate as
a series of flashing slides like the frames we use.
Twenty four frames per second is fast enough to give
the illusion of fluid movement to our eyes, but pigeon
vision has to be able to see signs of fast
(26:47):
moving prey, so twenty four frames per second is just
way too slow for the birds to perceive.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
All right, Well, pigeon vision may be based on ultra
quick movement, but do you know what's even faster than
a pigeon? Mango?
Speaker 1 (26:59):
A lot of things.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Okay, yeah, a lot of things are. But I was
specifically talking here about bees because apparently, back in eighteen
eighty eight, a pigeon fancier and bee keeper had this
friendly little contest in Germany. They challenged each other's pet
of choice to this grueling three and a half mile race,
and when you know it, the bee won by a
full twenty five seconds.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
That is impressive. But I mostly want to know how
this contest happened in the first place, Like how bored
must these guys have been to like organizer race? Like that?
It's a question ptty strange, But okay, So since we're
on the subject of pigeon losses, I have to tell
you that there are catfish in France that have learned
to lunge out of the water in an effort to
hunt pigeons. And while the catfish aren't the most adept
(27:44):
hunters on land, as you might imagine, they do pretty
well for themselves in the water, and their success rate
of catching pigeons is an impressive twenty eight percent.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
That's a lot higher than I would have guessed, to
be honest with you. Since we're talking to pigeons, I
couldn't leave the episode without, of course talking about Nicolette Tesla,
who you might remember was totally obsessed with pigeons. I
feel like that fact always has to come up here.
And one female pigeon in particular, so Tesla once said
of her, I love that pigeon as a man loves
(28:13):
a woman, and she loved me as long as I
had her. There was a purpose to my life such romance.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
You know, I was looking up scientists and pisions this
week too, and one thing I didn't realize was Darwin
was also obsessed with pigeons. He belonged to a London
fancy pigeon club, and he owned a flock. And in fact,
Mental Floss reports his nineteen sixty eight book The Variation
of Animals and Plants under Domestication, has two full chapters
(28:39):
on pigeons. Meanwhile, dogs and cats share a single chapter.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, that seems fair, all right, Well here's one I
really like. This artist named Laurel roth Hope Crochet's suits
for urban pigeons.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Well, I already like where this is going. Tell me more.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Well, she basically creates these disguises that pigeons can where
to look like extinct birds. It's basically, you know, coseplay
for pigeons, I guess, But I guess it's also to
raise awareness for what our parks could have looked like
if we were a little more careful with nature.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
I like that idea, and I do hope I get
to see some of these extinct not extinct birds in
the city, and I like the fact, so I'm going
to give it to you this week.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Well, thank you so much, and it definitely wasn't easy,
but I kind of liked that fact. But that does
it for today's episode of part Time Genius from Gabe, Tristan, Mango,
loll and me. Thanks so much for listening. Part Time
(29:46):
Genius is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio. Guess
what Will?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
What's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Did you hear about that pigeon that sold at auction
for over a million bucks?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
You know, I know you may find this surprising, but
I actually don't keep up with the world of pigeon auctions.
But but seriously, though, did somebody actually pay a million
dollars for a pigeon?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
It's actually slightly better than that. Somebody paid one point
four million dollars for a pigeon, and they did it
on this site. It's an auction site called Pippa, which
is short for Pigeon Paradise, which almost makes all of
us better. But to be fair, this was no ordinary bird.
This high priced Belgian pigeon is actually an esteemed champion
(00:46):
racer and his name is Armando. He's five years old.
He's widely considered the best of the best long distance
pigeons in the world. So for the buyer, having a
champion bird as young as Armando means plenty of chances
to breed him and to hopefully pass on his traits
to future flyers.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
You know, I actually don't think I realized that investing
in pigeons could be this lucrative.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I know you should have got into it years ago. Kid,
most of us don't give pigeons nearly as much credit
as they deserve. I mean, the ones we're used to
seeing can look drab or dirty. But the truth is
pigeons are exceptionally smart animals and they've been using that
brain power for the good of mankind for thousands of years.
So in light of that, I thought we could use
today's episode to give pigeons their due finally, from their
(01:28):
roles in scientific breakthroughs to all the times they delivered
mail for us. So there's a lot to cover. Let's
dive in.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and always I'm joined by my good friend
mangesh Hot Ticketerter. Now on the other side of that
soundproof glass showing off his dance skills by doing the
cou coo pigeon. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil,
and I have to say Bert may have invented this
dance and may have made it famous on Sesame Street
back in the seventies. I think it was, but Tristan,
(02:19):
I don't know about you mego, I feel like he's
perfected it.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
He really has, you know, gave actually sent me some
research on this on doing the pigeon And apparently in
the original opening, Burt is just hanging out watching home
movies of pigeons projected on his wall, and then a
few seconds into the footage, he tells the viewer, I
love pigeons more than anything else in the world besides oatmeal,
and then he busts out doing this whole choreograph, dance
and routine, and I just don't remember any of that,
(02:43):
but it sounds so good.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well, I can't speak to his oatmeal obsession, but Bert's
right about pigeons. I mean, they are much cooler than
we think. Just as an example, I was reading this
week that pigeons are actually capable of understanding abstract concepts
including space and time. Are you with me on this?
It's pretty interesting, So it's definitely not something that you'd
guess just by looking at them. But a couple of
(03:06):
years back, there was this team of scientists at the
University of Iowa that showed just how smart pigeons really are.
So the team tested a group of pigeons by placing
them in front of computer screens, and then they would
show them one of two lines, either this six centimeter
line or a twenty four centimeter line, and each of
the lines was paired with its own symbol, So anytime
(03:27):
the pigeons saw a line, they were supposed to peck
the symbol that corresponded with the correct length. So whenever
the birds got it right, the scientists fed them this
treat is a way to reinforce that they had chosen,
you know, the correct answer on this.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Which shows that pigeons can tell the difference between different
line lengths. But you said pigeons perceived time as.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Well, right, Yeah, So this is actually where things get
really interesting, because the scientists tested the pigeons not only
on the length of the lines, but also on how
long they were displayed for, so either two seconds or
eight seconds, and the results showed that pigeons connect the
concepts of space and time in this really interesting way.
So whenever the birds saw a short line displayed for
(04:06):
eight seconds, they would peck the symbol meant for a
long line. Because the line had been displayed for a
longer period of time, the pigeons actually judged it to
be longer. In length than it really was. And this
way of thinking also persistent when the birds were tested
on long lines being displayed. So anytime the pigeons saw
a long line displayed for just two seconds, they would
(04:27):
peck the symbol meant for an eight second duration. Because
the line was longer in length, the pigeons thought it
existed for a greater amount of time.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
So that would mean pigeons actually perceived time in relation
to space, right, which is what humans do, like using
the number of people in a line to gauge how
long a weight might be, for instance.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, that's exactly right, And studies have shown that elephants
and a few other primates tend to connect these concepts
as well. The only thing weird here is that pigeons
actually lacked the part of the brain that processes space
and time that other animals have. So pigeons are making
these same abstract connections that we are, but they're doing
so through some other method that we actually haven't figured out.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yet, which is pretty amazing. It actually reminds me of
this study I read about a while back where this
Japanese psychologist who's named Shigeru Watanabe. He trained a bunch
of pigeons to distinguish between paintings done by Picasso and
one's done by Monet, and the birds got so good
at recognizing the two different styles that they could even
sort out works of Cubism and Impressionism done by other artists.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
It kind of makes you wonder if they preferred one
style over the other when they were looking at.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
I mean, it's funny because the same researcher later conducted
a different pigeon experiment where he trained a group of
them to judge the artwork of elementary students. And apparently
he showed the birds two dozen paintings made by students
in Tokyo, and he taught the pigeons which of the
paintings could be considered good and which ones should be
labeled bad. I mean he did this by taking the
grades assigned by the school's teachers and a panel of
(05:54):
other adults. And anyway, once the pigeons had a grasp
on what made a good painting or a bad painting,
they were presented ten new paintings, and amazingly, the pigeons
were able to correctly identify which of these paintings would
get low marks by the panel and what's interesting is
that the findings suggests that pigeons can naturally categorize things
based on shape, color, and even texture, which is impressive
(06:16):
because you know, not a lot of other species have
that trait.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, that's true. I guess it's one more unexpected thing
we have in common with.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Them, Right, and this list keeps getting longer. Apparently there's
one more thing. Pigeons are the only non primates we
know with ability to recognize letters. So in a twenty
sixteen study this comes out of New Zealand, a team
successfully trained four pigeons to recognize dozens of English words,
including whether or not they were spelled correctly, and the
smartest pigeon in the group learned to staggering fifty eight words,
(06:44):
which it was able to distinguish from roughly one thousand
made up words. In contrast, the dullest pigeon, or maybe
the least motivated of these birds, still managed to build
an impressive twenty six word vocabulary during its time of
the lab.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
All right, so these birds weren't actually reading the words, right,
They they didn't learn what the words meant or anything.
They just memorized what the words look like. Is that right?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, that's right, So they didn't have the meanings. It
was just spellings. But you know, wild pigeons are smart
enough that they can learn all these neat tricks. It's
not like they're ever really called upon to be art
critics in the wild. And at the end of the day,
it does sort of seem like pigeons have all these
powers of perception, but maybe aren't living up to their
potential in the wild.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I mean, but there's got to be a reason that
they're capability these skills when you think, yeah, I mean, it's.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
True biologically, but in all the experiments we mentioned, the
pigeons were kind of making distinctions based on things that
humans taught them, like impressionist art has all these features,
or the word banana looks in a spell like this.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, I mean, I can imagine there are cases where
recognizing visual patterns might help a pigeon, you know, forage
for food or a beda predator like and maybe one
notices their nest isn't the way they left it and
that tips them off that something dangerous is in the
area or something like that. But going back to what
you said about humans guiding and rewarding pigeons behavior, what's
(08:00):
funny is that's something we unconsciously do, like including outside
the laboratory setting. For instance, back in twenty eleven, there
were these two researchers in Paris, and they discovered that
pigeons can remember the appearance and behavior of specific people.
So here's how it went. Over the course of multiple sessions,
these two researchers went to a local park and they
(08:21):
fed this same flock of pigeons. So the first time
they go out, one researcher fed the birds and then
just stood there while they ate this food. I Meanwhile,
the other researcher put some food down and then immediately
turned hostile and chased the pigeons away. I'm sure everybody
else in the park was enjoying this. But the researchers
then repeated the experiment again and again, except during the
(08:42):
subsequent visits, neither of them chased away the pigeons. And
here's the thing. The pigeons actually remembered which researcher had
been nice to them and which one had showed them away,
And so whenever the researchers returned, the pigeons continuously avoided
that researcher who had shunned them. In the first place,
even though he hadn't done anything like that on any
other occasion.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Huh, that's pretty interesting. So what kind of like visual
cues were the pigeons picking up, Like was the hostile
researcher bigger or more intimidating or facial hair like, what
was the distinction?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, when I was reading about this, that was what
I had assumed as well, is that maybe one researcher
just look less threatening or was wearing more attractive color
or something like that. But they actually accounted for all
of this. In the experiment. The researchers were the same sex, age, build,
skin color, They dressed similarly. It's true that each wore
a different colored lab coat, but you know, I mean,
(09:37):
they also switched lab coats on different visits, and the
pigeons could still always tell which researcher had been hostile
on that first encounter. So the most likely explanation for this,
according to experts, is that pigeons recognize the researchers by
their faces. So not only does that show how pigeons
might use their perceptive powers in the wild, it also
(09:58):
shows that pigeons are really smart about which visual information
to keep track of. Like, you know, take the different
colored lab codes for instance. It seems like the obvious
feature to remember, like since a lab code would have
you know, covered like ninety percent of their body. Yeah,
but it's like our version of feathers, you would think
at least. And yet the pigeons zeroed in on the researchers'
(10:20):
facial traits, which is something that couldn't easily be changed
day to day. And so according to these researchers, that
distinction is likely something pigeons have picked up on, you know,
over their years of living in cities and around other humans.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Which makes a ton of sense. And I'm actually glad
you're bringing up that city connection. We've talked a lot
so far about the science of pigeons, So what do
you say we change gears in and talk a little
pigeon history and how they came to cities in the
first place.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
That sounds good. But before we get into that, let's
take a quick break.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
And you're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking
about all the amazing things you never knew about the
humble pigeon, And speaking of which, one thing I was
surprised to learn this week is just how far back
our relationship with pigeons actually go. For instance, archaeologists have
(11:16):
uncovered figurines, mosaics, and other works of art depicting pigeons
at dig sites in modern day i Raq, and those
artifacts are thought to date as far back as forty
five hundred BCE. There's also evidence that pigeons were a
staple food in the Middle East and Europe for thousands
of years, and when you take all of that together,
it's likely that the common rock pigeon, which is the
(11:36):
species you find in most cities, may have been the
very first bird that humans domesticated.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
And if I remember it, did that happen mainly because
pigeons were an easy way to source meat or something.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Well, I think that was certainly their main appeal at first,
while game was often seen hard to come by in Mesopotamia,
so these protein rich rock pigeons would have been a
godsend in all likelihood, though some hungry ancient farmer probably
noticed the bird's milling around his crops and decided it
would be better if he let the birds roost on
his farm rather than drive him away. But one of
the side effects from spending so much time in close
(12:07):
quarters was that humans started to take liking to the birds,
and not just the way they tasted. Against all odds,
humans started seeing reflections of their own humanity and pigeons,
for instance, Unlike other animals, the pigeons were monogamous and
couples working together to raise their offspring. They were seen
as intelligent and fiercely protective when necessary, but also peaceful
(12:28):
and calm when left to their own devices. And all
these cultures kind of adapted the pigeon as a religious
symbol or a deity as a result. For example, there
are three different goddesses that were symbolized by the pigeons, ishtar, Aphrodite,
and Venus, which spans Babylonia and Greece and Roman culture.
And in Christian iconography, which I know a ton about,
(12:50):
the pigion is used to represent the Holy Spirit, or
at least that's what I read now.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
I know we probably have a lot of listeners thinking
here that you're getting your birds mixed up, because didn't
those religions use doves as symbols, not pigeons.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
So prepare to have your mind blown, because scientifically speaking,
the words dove and pigeon refer to the same animal.
They're actually one of three hundred eight different bird species
in the columbide family.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
All right, So you're telling me that the pure white dove,
a universal symbol of peace, is really just another kind
of pigeon.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
And vice versa. The gray rock pigeon you saw in
the park the other day is also known as a
rock dove.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
All right, So what about the birds themselves, Like, how
did every city in America wind up overrun by pigeons? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I mean overrun's actually a good word for it. Rock
pigeons are actually an invasive species. They were originally native
only to Eurasia and northern Africa, but that changed in
the early sixteen hundreds when European settlers like the French,
introduced the birds to North America for the very first time,
and the domesticated birds have been brought along as a
source of food or in some cases, just to be
(13:56):
raised as a hobby. But somewhere along the way, many
of them escaped to cities and made new homes from
themselves on the ledges of buildings, which probably reminded them
of the cliffs back home that they'd nest in the
wild on. And from that point on, pigeons became a
fixture in American towns and cities, really thriving in parts
because pigeons aren't picky eaters. They don't have special diets
(14:18):
like many other birds, so whatever trash or leftovers they
found on city streets that kind of suited their taste
just fine.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Which I don't know why I always think about this quote,
but there was that thirty Rock line where Tracy Jordan
sees a pigeon eating trash and he just goes stop
eating people's old French fries. Pigeon have some self respect,
don't you know? You can fly, which is so good.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
But that lack of self respect has benefited them over
the years. The world pigeon population is estimated at four
hundred million, with seven million pigeons living in New York
City alone. That's almost a bird for every New Yorker
minus the bronx.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I was going to say, the population in the area
is about that. That's pretty crazy. And all those birds
in the US are descended from on that initial crop
of European runaways.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, they're all imported, but to be fair, that wasn't
always the case. So when rock pigeons were first brought
to American chores, in the seventeenth century, the continent actually
had its own thriving indigenous pigeon species, and that's the
passenger pigeon. And according to mental Floss, as many as
five billion passenger pigeons lived here during the colonial era,
accounting for somewhere between twenty five to forty percent of
(15:25):
all birds in the entire country. However, as you probably know,
that's not the case anymore. Over, hunting and habitat loss,
all of that kind of brought an end to the
passenger pigeon in the early twentieth century, with the last
of their kind, this domesticateid female named Martha, passing away
in nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
All right, this is probably the strangest transition that I'm
going to make today, but you queued it up so
nicely for me. So, speaking of dead pigeons, one thing
I've always wondered is, if New York is so chock
full of them, then how are there not dead ones
everywhere you look?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Like?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
At least, not that I'm complaining about this, but if
you have thought about that.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
You know I haven't thought about it. But now I'm
curious what you learn, Like, did you get an answer
for this?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Well? It turns out that pigeon corpses really are something
of a rarity in American cities, and the biggest reason
for this is that the sheer number of predators that
pigeons are up against in urban areas is greater than
you would think. Like, as someone at the Smithsonian once
put it, rats, cats, raccoons, foxes, possums, they all love
them some pigeon, is what they said.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
That is Sasha Smithsonian thing Smithsonian. So you're saying most
pigeons get eaten up by predators, But what about like
the old timers. I mean, there have to be some
pigeons that make it to old age. So where did
those guys end up?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Well, you're definitely talking about the minority here. I mean,
most wild pigeons survive for five or six years on average,
and that's compared to fifteen years or even longer in captivity.
So the ones that aren't eaten, like the lucky ones,
who have a lot more control over their deaths, they
tend to choose these peaceful nooks and crannies for their
final resting places. So maybe the air ducts of a
(17:01):
building or the corner ledge of a skyscraper. Some whether
it's you know, not quite as visible.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
So I guess it really does depend on where you look.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, I mean, you've got to really want to find
a dead pigeon. I guess.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It's a heck of a scavenger. But you know, the
whole time we've been talking about this, I keep thinking
of that story about Nixon's inaugurations. Do you remember this one?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
I don't think I do remember. This.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Apparently had a tough go at his first inauguration in
nineteen sixty nine, like the Vietnam War was in full swing,
and Nixon's motorcade wound up being pelted with tomatoes and rocks.
So when his second inauguration came around in seventy three,
Nixon remembered how messy things had gotten the last time,
and he wanted to take every possible precaution to avoid
another embarrassment. And this is how far he went. Right.
(17:45):
He had his people paint the branches of trees along
the parade route with this special chemical called roost no more.
It was this guy chemical that was supposed to make
a pigeon's feet so itchy that it wouldn't want to
above the motor kit. I guess, And yeah, and obviously
he was trying to avoid droppings falling on the car.
(18:06):
But as you can probably tell about the fact that
I'm telling you this story, things did not go as planned.
So for starters, the pigeons didn't mind the itchiness of
roofs no more, I guess. And what's worse, they didn't
mind the taste of it either. So so many pigeons ate
this highly toxic paste that the day of the parade,
the entire route was like littered with dozens of dead
(18:27):
and dying pigeons, which is so much worse than dirty windshields.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Oh no kidding. Can you imagine being there? That would
have been pretty brute, so weird. All right, Well, now
that we've seen the time when pigeons and humans didn't
get along so well, I feel like we should take
a look at a few examples of the opposite, you know,
the times when pigeons and people lived in perfect harmony.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah, let's do that, But first another break.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Welcome back to part time genius. Somego. I know it
can be dicey to try and pin down the etymology
of a phrase. Any idiom you think of can probably
have a half dozen or so false origin stories. But
there is one that I came across this week that
was just too interesting not to talk about it. So
you've heard the term stool pigeon.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Before, right, sure, like an informer or rat or whatever.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
That's right. And it's kind of a strange phrase when
you think about it, because number one, how does a
stool fit into any of this? And number two, pigeons
aren't that talkative and you know, as far as birds go,
they're actually pretty quiet.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
So I hadn't thought about this before, but I'm pretty
curious where does the term actually come from.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Well, the working theory is that the phrase is this
throwback to an old sixteenth century hunting practice where pigeons
were used as decoys to lure in larger birds. As
for the stool part, there are a couple of options here.
One is that these decoy pigeons were tied to actual stools,
like the idea of being that the live pigeon would
flutter in place and catch the eye of these other animals.
(20:02):
And then the other option is that stool is really
a corruption of this word stole, which is an old
word for tree stump. It's spelled stoa l e. And
in either case of the stool was whatever you tie
the decoy pigeon to, and then sometime in the mid
eighteen hundreds, Americans started applying the term to a different
type of decoy. Those would be these police informers who
(20:25):
hung around the criminal world or the criminal underworld. Really,
and I'm not sure who first made that connection or why,
but that doesmv where it might have come from.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Well, pigeons may not be very talkative themselves, but they
are pretty amazing when it comes to delivering other people's messages,
and that's thanks to their innate sense of direction. You know,
pigeons can find their way back home from pretty much anywhere,
even if scientists still haven't figured out how they do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I actually remember we covered some of these theories way
back in that Superhero Animal episode, So if you guys
are curious about that, definitely check it out.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Definitely. And despite all the mystery around their navigational skills,
the reality is that humans have been using pigeons as
messengers since at least as far back as three thousand BCE.
The ancient Greeks used trained pigeons to communicate the results
of the Olympics, and as you might recall, from our
Genghi's Kan episode, the Mongols developed a whole pigeon based
(21:19):
postal system to help connect the growing empire.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, and from what I was reading this week, they
weren't the only ones who put pigeons in charge of
their post. So the birds were apparently used to carry
mail in the Middle East. This was as far back
as the fifth century BCE, and pigeon posts still existed
in some regions until as recently as the early twentieth century.
You take New Zealand's Great Barrier Island for instance. They
(21:43):
relied on a handful of competing pigeon postal services for
the better part of a decade in the late eighteen hundreds,
and since the island is about sixty miles away from
the mainland train pigeons were the fastest way for residents
to communicate back and forth. They even issued these special
stamps that were only valid for pigeon posts and instantly
They're believed to be the first examples of airmail stamps
(22:05):
in the world.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
So what about telegraphs, though, weren't those around in the
late eighteen hundreds?
Speaker 2 (22:10):
They were, but you know, even with that, service was spotty,
and the birds were pretty resilient. Like in wartime telegraph
wires could be easily cut and you never knew, you know,
who might be listening in on this, you know, if
they were kind of tapping the line or something. So
pigeon messengers became this crucial means of communication. Actually, one
famous instance comes from a carrier pigeon named cher Ami
(22:32):
that flew for the US Army in France. This was
back during World War One. Now, Shaami delivered twelve important
messages during his military career, but on his final mission,
this was October of nineteen eighteen, the pigeon was shot,
actually shot both in the breast and the leg by
enemy fire. And despite this injury, Sharami flew back to
his roost with the message capsule still tied to his
(22:56):
wounded leg.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
It's just unbelievable, which is crazy, but what the message said.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
It was from a battalion of one hundred and ninety
four soldiers who had been isolated from other American forces,
and people just assumed that they were dead. And so
thanks to share on me, the army learned of the
soldiers whereabouts and they were able to get them to
safety back behind American lines. And I mean, I know,
in the bird's mind he wasn't trying to rescue a
(23:20):
bunch of soldiers. He just wanted to make it back
home alive. But I mean, it's still pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I mean, it is a little surprising. The enemies were
like clever enough to slice telegraph wires, but they didn't
think to like bring in a few hawks to like
feed on the pigeons and disrupt the communication. It feels
like a simpler solution. But you know, here's another thing
I had no idea about until this episode. Do you
know that two pigeons unknowingly helped establish the Big Bang theory.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I hate to ask this question, but are we talking
about the sitcom or like the model of the universe,
because one of these seems way more plausible than the.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Other, so weirdly, it is the latter. Before I get
into how the pigeons fit into this, let me give
some quick background. So back in nineteen sixty four, two
scientists in New Jersey, Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias, were
experimenting with their radio telescope and they were trying to
measure the minimum brightness of the sky. But to their dismay,
(24:11):
something was interfering with their readings, and whatever it was,
it was producing a pronounced hissing noise. Now spoilers, what
they actually heard that day was an ancient cosmic background radiation,
or as Smithsonian calls it, quote and echo of the
universe at a very early moment after its birth. So,
although they didn't know this at the time, Wilson and
Penzeus had just found what would ultimately become the first
(24:34):
proof for the Big Bang theory. And in the moment,
though the men weren't sure what they were hearing. They
thought it could be a stray signal from nearby New York,
or maybe their equipment was faulty. It really could have
been anything, but at one point, the most likely suspects
were actually a couple of pigeons that had set up
shop in the antenna array, and when the scientists discovered
(24:55):
the bird's roost, their hopes were dashed. It was starting
to look like this hissing sound was really just this
embarrassing revelation that it was a couple of pigeons mucking
about their instruments.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
I kind of love that this is what it boiled
down to, Like, it's either the afterglow of the birth
of the universe, or you know, some birds just going
into the bathroom. It's one of the other. Who knows,
I know.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
But Wilson and Phentzias couldn't rule it out, like they
had to get to the bottom of this. And so
here's how Robert Wilson later described what they did. Quote,
we took the pigeons, put them in a box and
mailed them as far away as we could in the
company mail to a guy who fancied pigeons. He looked
at them and said, these are junk pigeons and let
them go. But before long they were right back again.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Wait, so the same pigeons came back in like after
being mailed across the country.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, because they have those homing systems, so they can
find their way back from thousands of miles away or whatever.
But you know, thankfully, the scientists were eventually able to
get the array cleaned out, and after a year or
so of experiments, they concluded that the hiss they heard
was indeed cosmic radiation and not defecating pigeons. The birds
confusing contra bbution to history, though, hasn't been forgotten. And
(26:02):
if you go to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
today you can see the actual metal trap that Wilson
and Penzius used to trap the squatter pigeons some fifty
five years ago.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
That is quite the honor, and I feel like a
well deserved one. So what do you say we end
on that note and get right into the fact off.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
So here's a quick one. Because birds such as pigeons
have a much higher threshold for detecting movement, they would
likely see a movie shown at today's industry rate as
a series of flashing slides like the frames we use.
Twenty four frames per second is fast enough to give
the illusion of fluid movement to our eyes, but pigeon
vision has to be able to see signs of fast
(26:47):
moving prey, so twenty four frames per second is just
way too slow for the birds to perceive.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
All right, Well, pigeon vision may be based on ultra
quick movement, but do you know what's even faster than
a pigeon? Mango?
Speaker 1 (26:59):
A lot of things.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Okay, yeah, a lot of things are. But I was
specifically talking here about bees because apparently, back in eighteen
eighty eight, a pigeon fancier and bee keeper had this
friendly little contest in Germany. They challenged each other's pet
of choice to this grueling three and a half mile race,
and when you know it, the bee won by a
full twenty five seconds.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
That is impressive. But I mostly want to know how
this contest happened in the first place, Like how bored
must these guys have been to like organizer race? Like that?
It's a question ptty strange, But okay, So since we're
on the subject of pigeon losses, I have to tell
you that there are catfish in France that have learned
to lunge out of the water in an effort to
hunt pigeons. And while the catfish aren't the most adept
(27:44):
hunters on land, as you might imagine, they do pretty
well for themselves in the water, and their success rate
of catching pigeons is an impressive twenty eight percent.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
That's a lot higher than I would have guessed, to
be honest with you. Since we're talking to pigeons, I
couldn't leave the episode without, of course talking about Nicolette Tesla,
who you might remember was totally obsessed with pigeons. I
feel like that fact always has to come up here.
And one female pigeon in particular, so Tesla once said
of her, I love that pigeon as a man loves
(28:13):
a woman, and she loved me as long as I
had her. There was a purpose to my life such romance.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
You know, I was looking up scientists and pisions this
week too, and one thing I didn't realize was Darwin
was also obsessed with pigeons. He belonged to a London
fancy pigeon club, and he owned a flock. And in fact,
Mental Floss reports his nineteen sixty eight book The Variation
of Animals and Plants under Domestication, has two full chapters
(28:39):
on pigeons. Meanwhile, dogs and cats share a single chapter.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, that seems fair, all right, Well here's one I
really like. This artist named Laurel roth Hope Crochet's suits
for urban pigeons.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Well, I already like where this is going. Tell me more.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Well, she basically creates these disguises that pigeons can where
to look like extinct birds. It's basically, you know, coseplay
for pigeons, I guess, But I guess it's also to
raise awareness for what our parks could have looked like
if we were a little more careful with nature.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
I like that idea, and I do hope I get
to see some of these extinct not extinct birds in
the city, and I like the fact, so I'm going
to give it to you this week.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Well, thank you so much, and it definitely wasn't easy,
but I kind of liked that fact. But that does
it for today's episode of part Time Genius from Gabe, Tristan, Mango,
loll and me. Thanks so much for listening. Part Time
(29:46):
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