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