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Description: | The Bell Pettigrew Museum holds a large collection of birds, bird skeletons and birds eggs from around the world. Amongst the specimens is a quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno), a rare and endangered species that comes from South America. It was presented to the Museum by Dr Albert Gunther, Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum, along with 45 other bird specimens, all of which came originally from the collections of Alfred Russel Wallace, the eminent naturalists who, with Charles Darwin, was a co-inventor of the theory of evolution by natural selection. As well as a general bird section containing examples of Herons, Grouse, Flamingos (with eggs), Storks and a Rhinoceros Hornbill the bird collection has been sub-divided into geographical areas, with a separate display on flightless birds. Geographically the collection has been split into three sections, Asian, America (North and South) and native British birds. Among the Asian birds are Cuckoos, Jungle Fowl, Thrushes, Kingfishers, Bee-eaters and Sun birds. For America we have Cotingas, Ant birds’, Tyrant Fly Catchers, Trogens, Parrots, Mot Mots and Red Wings. Finally native British birds include several types of Duck, Owls, Game birds, Gulls and birds of prey, including an example of a white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla). As a result of habitat loss and persecution the white-tailed eagle became extinct in Scotland in 1918. A reintroduction programme, started in the 1959, allowed it to make a successful return. It is now Britain's largest bird, with females weighing up to 7 kg and having a wingspan of nearly 2.5 metres.
The Museum holds 8 dodo bones, as well as casts of bones of the dodo. These bones are extremely important as, surprisingly, given the fame of the dodo, very few specimens of dodos survive and none are complete (for example, of the dodo acquired, as part of Elias Ashmole's collection, by Oxford University, just a mummified head and foot now remain). The dodo, a flightless bird, was discovered by Europeans on the island of Mauritius in 1598. Human intervention in its environment, from deliberate hunting to the destruction of the birds' habitat and the destruction of their eggs by cats, dogs and pigs introduced to the island, resulted in its extinction by about 1680. The eight dodo bones (Mauritius), and 11 solitaire bones (Rodriguez) in the Bell Pettigrew Museum were donated by Alfred Newton (1827-1907), Professor of Zoology at Cambridge University. His brother Sir Edward Newton was a colonial administrator on Mauritius 1859-77, and he sent back solitaire and dodo bones for study. The Museum also holds two bones of the extinct Aepyornis ('elephant bird') from Madagascar. | Subjects: | BIRDS ZOOLOGY | Source: | University of St Andrews | Address: | KY16 9AJ | Creator: | GUNTHER, Albert | Contributor: | University of St Andrews | Identifier: | BP:C51 | Language: | en-GB | Relation: | MC:C48 |
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