spotted green pigeon
The Spotted Green Pigeon by Joseph Smit from Bulletin of Liverpool Museums 1898. World Museum

A 230-year-old pigeon in a Liverpool museum is related to the long extinct Dodo, scientists say.

Scientists at Griffith University in Australia have invented a new way of extracting fragments of DNA from the feathers of the World Museum's spotted green pigeon.

Known as the 'Liverpool Pigeon' the bird would have originated from either the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia or Oceania.

It is the only remaining example of the species in the world.

Clem Fisher, Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at World Museum, said it was good it found its place in the world of birds after more than 230 years.

Dr Tim Heupink, from the Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Australia said: "This study improves our ability to identify novel (new) species from historic remains, and also those that are not novel after all. Ultimately this will help us to measure and understand the extinction of local populations and entire species."

liverpool pigeon
The only surviving specimen of the Spotted Green Pigeon in the world. World Museum
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