Merpati penumpang
Male Passenger Pigeon--chromolithograph
Klasifikasi ilmiah
Kerajaan:
Filum:
Kelas:
Ordo:
Famili:
Genus:
Ectopistes

Swainson, 1827
Spesies:
E. migratorius
Nama binomial
Ectopistes migratorius
Video Ectopistes migratorius, Naturalis
Ectopistes migratorius

Merpati penumpang (Ectopistes migratorius) adalah spesies merpati yang telah punah asal Amerika Serikat. Diperkirakan bahwa terdapat 5 miliar merpati penumpang di Amerika Serikat ketika Eropa mengkolonisasi Amerika Utara.[1] Mereka hidup pada kumpulan besar, dan selama migrasi, mereka dapat terlihat, membutuhkan beberapa hari untuk melewati dan membawa miliaran burung.[2][3][4][5]

Berkurangnya populasinya disebabkan oleh hilangnya habitat ketika orang Eropa mulai memasuki daerah dalam. Namun, akibat utama kepunahannya adalah ketika daging merpati dikomersialisasikan sebagai makanan murah untuk budak dan orang miskin pada abad ke-19, menyebabkan perburuan besar-besaran. "Martha" diketahui sebagai merpati penumpang terakhir di dunia yang mati pada tanggal 1 September 1914 di Cincinnati, Ohio.

Referensi sunting

Daftar pustaka sunting

  • Weidensaul, Scott (1994). Mountains of the Heart: A Natural History of the Appalachians. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing. ISBN 1-55591-143-9.
  • Eckert, Allan W. (1965). The Silent Sky: The Incredible Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon. Lincoln NE: IUniverse.com. ISBN 0-595-08963-1.
  • New York Times; August 18, 1901, Wednesday; The Hon. Charles T. Dunning of Goshen, ex-Chief Clerk of the New York State Senate, has a fine collection of mounted specimens of birds, and among them is one of a bird that is today extinct, so far as any one has been able to discover, although less than fifteen years ago it was abundant on this continent and to the people of this State was as familiar as sparrows now are.
  • Schorger, A.W. 1955. The Passenger Pigeon: Its Natural History and Extinction. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI. Reprinted in paperback, 2004, by Blackburn Press. ISBN 1-930665-96-2. 424 pp.

Catatan sunting

  1. ^ Smithsonian Institution; it is believed that this species once constituted 25 to 40 per cent of the total bird population of the United States. It is estimated that there were 3 billion to 5 billion passenger pigeons at the time Europeans discovered America.
  2. ^ "Three Hundred Dollars Reward; Will Be Paid for a Nesting Pair of Wild Pigeons, a Bird So Common in the United States Fifty Years Ago That Flocks in the Migratory Period Frequently Partially Obscured the Sun from View. How America Has Lost Birds of Rare Value and How Science Plans to Save Those That Are Left". New York Times. January 16 1910 Sunday. Unless the State and Federal Governments come to the rescue of American game, plumed and song birds, the not distant future will witness the practical extinction of some of the most beautiful and valuable species. Already the snowy heron, that once swarmed in immense droves over the United States, is gone, a victim of the greed and cruelty of milliners whose "creations" its beautiful nuptial feathers have gone to adorn. 
  3. ^ "Ask". Diarsipkan dari versi asli tanggal 2007-09-11. Diakses tanggal 2007-11-17. 
  4. ^ "Prior to 1492, this was a rare species." Mann, Charles C. "The Artificial Wilderness". 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. hlm. pp. 315–8. ISBN 1-4000-4006-X. 
  5. ^ BirdLife International (2004). Ectopistes migratorius. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Diakses 10 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is listed as extinct

Pranala luar sunting