25-Aug-2022 Theme: 'Pigeon'

(1) Phaps is a genus of native Australian pigeons, the most abundant and widespread of which is Phaps chalcoptera. What are the Phaps species commonly known as?

Answer: Bronzewings.

(2) Jandamarra, known to European settlers as Pigeon, led numerous armed attacks by Aboriginal people against settlers in the 1890s, before being killed in 1897. In what State did he live?

Answer: Western Australia (Bunuba country, southern Kimberley).

(3) What does ‘pigeon-toed’ mean in humans?

Answer: Feet point inwards.

(4) Once the most abundant bird in North America, numbering in the billions, which pigeon was hunted to extinction by the early 1900s.

Answer: Passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius).

(5) What is a stool pigeon? (bonus: where did the term originate?)

Answer: An informer or spy (bonus: from pigeon-hunting technique in Britain in the early 1800s, in which a pigeon was tied to a moving stool to attract other pigeons).

Archive: