Talk:Martha (passenger pigeon)

Public display

It is written in the article, that "Martha is now no longer on public display". What about this photo? It's written there that the photo was made in December, 2008.

Is it a photo of Martha or not? Krasss (talk) 14:12, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

According to the cited Smithsonian article, "Martha is now in the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History but is not on view.". As far as I can tell, the Smithsonian article was last modified in March 2001, so either Martha was brought back to the Cincinnati zoo at some point, or the 2008 photo claimed to be taken at the zoo is of another pigeon. I can't tell which from the articles currently cited. Don Lammers (talk) 10:57, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

My mistake, seems like the specimen at the Zoo is the last wild specimen: http://www.makecincinnatiweird.com/2005/02/23/rip-martha-beloved-pigeon-1885-1914/ But it would be nice to find a more credible source for this. FunkMonk (talk) 08:41, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Martha will be going back on display, at the Smithsonian, pretty soon: http://www.si.edu/Exhibitions/Details/Once-There-Were-Billions-Vanished-Birds-of-North-America-5126 I'd edit the article but it might be seen as a conflict of interest. Drastician (talk) 22:29, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

New Martha for you

Just uploaded this! Sarah (talk) 00:40, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Nice! FunkMonk (talk) 14:28, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Early Days Controversy

The cited Whitman book in Passenger Pigeon claims 1902 sent by Whitman. Shufeldt claims last of flock of 8 obtained 1878, and also born in captivity. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 20:29, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

General Details?

Do you think that general details about her appearance and how she would have been raised should be included in the article? There aren't citations for her specifically, but they are present in the Passenger Pigeon article. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 20:56, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 22 October 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved with rough consensus (non-admin closure) — Andy W. (talk) 17:23, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

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Martha (pigeon) → Martha (passenger pigeon) – Page was originally moved to the current name to conform to other individual pigeon articles, however those articles refer to domestic pigeons whereas Martha was a passenger pigeon (a distinct species). The current disambiguator is therefore misleading. Lost on  Belmont ^3200N_1000W  (talk) 18:53, 22 October 2016 (UTC) --Relisting. Andrewa (talk) 20:58, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

• I support the move to Martha (passenger pigeon). Dan Koehl (talk) 19:11, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

• Support, she was the last of her kind after humans stupidly gave the lot of them an extinction ticket, so the use of the "passenger pigeon" species descriptor seems apt and informative, and is likely Martha's common name as well. I don't see a mention of where the stuffed bird is now, the page kind of leaves her in non-update limbo. Anyone have any idea? Probably back at the Cincinnati Zoo, but no source, and is she on exhibit or set up off-exhibit again? Thanks. Randy Kryn 20:43, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

• Support per nomination. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 05:09, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose and reiisting. The current disambiguator is concise and accurate. There is no reason to move to the longer disambiguator; Information as to Martha's species belongs in the article, not in the title. The existing redirect from the proposed target should stay to deal with any existing external links. Andrewa (talk) 20:56, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
  • The current disambiguator is accurate insofar as Jamabalaya (Equidae) or even Jambalaya (mammal) is a suitable title for Jambalaya (horse). Taxonomically, the current title is fine (as passenger pigeons are indeed members of the pigeon family) but misleading since "pigeon" often refers to Columba livia to a general readership. —  AjaxSmack  17:18, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

• Support as pigeon is an imprecise and misleading disambiguator that misses the point. Dicklyon (talk) 05:40, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

• Support a return to the original name per nom. Passenger pigeons are not usually perceived as simply "pigeons". —  AjaxSmack  17:18, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

External links modified (January 2018)

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Date of an extinction

The date on which Martha died, September 1, 1914, is often quoted by science educators as an example where we can actually put a date to an extinction event. Imagine that! However, this is not correct. A sexual species is lost somewhat prior to the death of the ending (= the last remaining individual). It is the last moment in time when two fertile individuals of opposite sexes are still extant; the total number of individuals at that moment in time can be greater than 2, and there can even be any number of (same-sex!) individuals alive after this point of no return. The present article does not repeat this mistake, and duly documents the search for a male mate (since we now know that the ending of the Passenger Pigeon was a female, the point of no return must have coincided with the death of a male, at an unknown but prior point in time). It would be good to point this out, since wikipedia is where many educators come for their basic information. In this discusion, I have used the term point of no return, but of course it might be possible to salvage the DNA. In birds, males are the homogametic sex (ZZ), while females are the heterogametic sex (ZW). This means that in principle, had we been able to salvage Martha's chromosomes, we would have been able to reconstitute female clones of Martha, plus males that would have been completely homozygous on all Z-loci. This would still have fallen short of salvaging the Passenger Pigeon, since any alleles that Martha did not happen to have would have been lost, and thereby the natural genetic variation that existed when there were still billions of Passenger Pigeons. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:2559:A72F:C266:3AA (talk) 08:24, 8 April 2020 (UTC)