"Great as are the differences between the breeds of the pigeon, I am fully convinced that the common opinion of naturalists is correct, namely, that all are descended from the rock-pigeon (Columba livia)."Excerpt from Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859)
This game will put your pigeon-breeding skills to the test.
Go beyond the Punnett square, and look at Mendel's Laws of Inheritance from a mathematical perspective.
Some genes mask the effects of others. This page uses an easy-to-understand analogy to explain how.
Genes located near one another on the same chromosome are often inherited together.
For genes on sex chromosomes, inheritance works differently in males and females.
To make it clear what we're talking about, we've used the following naming conventions:
See why pigeons are an ideal animal for studying genetics.
A single gene controls whether pigeons have a crown of feathers around their heads.
Slipper, Grouse, and Muff describe different types of feathering on the legs and feet.
Pigeons can have 4 different wing patterns: barless, bar, check, and t-check.
Three alleles of this sex-linked gene control whether feathers are blue, brown, or ash-red.
The spread allele causes color to be evenly distributed across the body.
Pigeons with two copies of this allele are colored a uniform shade of red.
This gene affects the intensity of all the feather colors and wing patterns.
Learn why these diverse birds inspired Charles Darwin and how they're still informing evolutionary biologists today.