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Domestic canary
Subspecies of bird

The domestic canary (Serinus canaria forma domestica) is a domesticated form of the wild canary, a small songbird from the finch family native to the Macaronesian Islands including the Azores, Madeira, and Canary Islands. First bred in captivity in the 17th century, canaries became popular across Europe and England through selective breeding. From the 18th to 20th centuries, both canaries and finches were used in the coal mining industry to detect carbon monoxide, a practice that ended in the UK in 1986. Today, canaries remain prized as cage and aviary birds, with a lifespan of 10 to 15 years with proper care.

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Etymology

The birds are named after Spain's Canary Islands, which derive their name from the Latin Insula Canaria (after one of the larger islands, Gran Canaria), meaning 'island of dogs', due to its "vast multitudes of dogs of very large size".5

Varieties

Domestic canaries are generally divided into three main groups:

  • Colour-bred canaries (bred for their many colour mutations – Ino, Eumo, Satinette, Bronze, Ivory, Onyx, Mosaic, Brown, red factor, Green (Wild Type): darkest black and brown melanin shade in yellow ground birds, Yellow Melanin: mutation showing yellow ground colour with brown and black pigment, Yellow Lipochrome: mutation creating the loss of brown and black pigment, leaving yellow ground colour6 etc.)
  • Type canaries (bred for their shape and conformation – Australian plainhead, Berner, Border, Fife, Gibber Italicus, Gloster, Lancashire, Raza Española, Yorkshire, etc.)
  • Song canaries (bred for their unique and specific song patterns – Spanish Timbrado, German Roller (also known as Harz Roller), Waterslager (also known as "Malinois"), American Singer, Russian Singer, Persian Singer).

While wild canaries are a yellowish-green colour, domestic canaries have been selectively bred for a wide variety of colours, such as yellow, orange, brown, black, white, and red (the colour red was introduced to the domestic canary through hybridisation with the red siskin (Spinus cucullatus), a species of South American finch).7 Evidence of hybridization has also been found between the domestic canary (S. canaria domestica) and the black-chinned siskin (Spinus barbatus) in captivity.8

Midway Atoll is home to a colony of feral yellow canaries, descended from pet birds introduced in 1909 by employees of the Commercial Pacific Cable Company.9 An estimated 500 canaries, which have retained their bright yellow plumage, are resident on Sand Island.10

Competitions

Canaries are judged in competitions following the annual molt in the summer.11 This means that in the Northern Hemisphere the show season generally begins in October or November and runs through December or January. Birds can only be shown by the persons who raised them. A show bird must have a unique band on its leg indicating the year of birth, the band number, and the club to which the breeder belongs.

There are many canary shows all over the world. The world show (C.O.M. - Confederation Ornithologique Mondiale) is held in Europe each year and attracts thousands of breeders. As many as 20,000 birds are brought together for this competition.

Miner's canary

Mice were used as sentinel species for use in detecting carbon monoxide in British coal mining from around 1896,12 after the idea had been suggested in 1895 by John Scott Haldane.13 Toxic gases such as carbon monoxide, asphyxiant gases such as carbon dioxide and explosive gases like methane14 in the mine would affect small warm-blooded animals before affecting the miners, since their respiratory exchange is more rapid than in humans. A mouse will be affected by carbon monoxide within a few minutes, while a human will have an interval of 20 times as long.15 Later, canaries were found to be more sensitive and a more effective indicator as they showed more visible signs of distress. Their use in mining is documented from around 1900.16 The birds were sometimes kept in carriers which had small oxygen bottles attached to revive them.1718 The use of miners' canaries in British mines was phased out in 1986.1920

The phrase "canary in a coal mine" is frequently used to refer to a person or thing which serves as an early warning of a coming crisis. By analogy, the term "climate canary" is used to refer to a species (called an indicator species) that is affected by an environmental danger prior to other species, thus serving as an early warning system for the other species with regard to the danger.21

Use in research

Canaries have been extensively used in research to study neurogenesis, or the birth of new neurons in the adult brain, and also for basic research in order to understand how songbirds encode and produce song. Thus, canaries have served as model species for discovering how the vertebrate brain learns, consolidates memories, and recalls coordinated motor movements.

Fernando Nottebohm, a professor at the Rockefeller University in New York City, detailed the avian brain structures and pathways that are involved in the production of bird song.2223

Canaries are sometimes used to avoid hazardous human testing. Wasicky et al. 1949 used them in early testing of insect repellents. Human testing could only provide limited sample size and the inherent variance of the host ⇔ repellent ⇔ insect interaction is too high. Canaries, among other test animals, provided larger sample sizes cheaply.24

In culture

In organized crime, the canary symbolizes an informant who "sings" to the police.25

Canaries have been depicted in cartoons from the mid-20th century as being harassed by domestic cats; the most famous cartoon canary is Warner Bros.' "Tweety".

Norwich City, an English football team, is nicknamed "the Canaries" due to the city once being a famous centre for breeding and export of the birds. The club adopted the colours of yellow and green in homage. Jacob Mackley, of Norwich, won many prizes with birds of the local variety and shipped about 10,000 from Norwich to New York every year.26 A number of other sports teams worldwide use variations of the name "Canaries", such as Atlético Morelia (Mexico), Botev Plovdiv (Bulgaria), Frosinone (Italy), Koper (Slovenia), FC Novi Sad (Serbia), Fenerbahçe (Turkey), Lillestrøm SK (Norway), Kedah FA (Malaysia), IAPE (Maranhão, Brazil), the Brazil national football team and the Brazil women's national football team.

In Allentown, Pennsylvania, the mascot of the city's largest high school, William Allen High School, are the canaries.27

See also

Further reading

  • McDonald, Robirda, Brats in Feathers, Keeping Canaries ISBN 0-9730434-4-X
  • Miley-Russell, Marie, The Practical Canary Handbook, A Guide to Breeding and Keeping Canaries. ISBN 1-59113-851-5. Especially useful to American Singer canary owners.
  • Linda Hogan, Canary Tales
  • GB Walker, Colour, Type, and Song Canaries
  • David Alderton, Birds Care, You and your pet bird
  • Author unknown, The Canary Handbook, Canaries, Barrons
  • Tim Hawcroft, Health Care for Birds
  • James Blake, Fife Canaries
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References

  1. Hawley, DM; Grodio, J; Frasca, S; Kirkpatrick, L; Ley, DH (2011). "Experimental infection of domestic canaries (Serinus canaria domestica) with Mycoplasma gallisepticum: a new model system for a wildlife disease". Avian Pathol. 40 (3): 321–7. doi:10.1080/03079457.2011.571660. PMID 21711192. S2CID 205546920. https://doi.org/10.1080%2F03079457.2011.571660 ↩

  2. "Serinus canaria (Island Canary)". Avibase. Retrieved July 9, 2024. https://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/species.jsp?avibaseid=191B68BCE6E4154B ↩

  3. Eschener, Kat (December 30, 2016). "The Story of the Real Canary in the Coal Mine". Smithsonian. Retrieved June 11, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/story-real-canary-coal-mine-180961570/ ↩

  4. "Canary Care". Animal World. Retrieved February 27, 2016. http://animal-world.com/encyclo/birds/canaries/CanaryProfile.htm ↩

  5. Pliny the Elder. "Natural History". Archived from the original on April 29, 2019. Retrieved July 25, 2012. /wiki/Pliny_the_Elder ↩

  6. "Color Canaries: Information and Sound Recordings". Beauty of Birds. September 16, 2021. https://www.beautyofbirds.com/colorcanaries.html ↩

  7. Birkhead, Tim (2003). A Brand-New Bird: How Two Amateur Geneticists Create the First Genetically Engineered Animal. New York, NY: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00665-6. 978-0-465-00665-6 ↩

  8. Diaz, Leila; Correa, Víctor Alejandro; Nuñez, José J. (2018). "Evidencias moleculares de hibridación entre Serinus canaria domestica (L., 1758) y Spinus barbatus (Molina, 1782) (Aves: Fringillidae)" [Molecular evidences of hybridization between Serinus canaria domestica (L., 1758) and S. barbatus (M., 1782) (Aves: Fringillidae)]. Boletín de la Real Sociedad Española de Historia Natural (in Spanish). 112 (1): 29–34. doi:10.29077/bol/112/ce03_diaz. ISSN 2659-2703. http://www.rsehn.es/publicaciones-boletin/art418 ↩

  9. Bryan, William Alanson (1912). "The Introduction and Acclimatization of the Yellow Canary on Midway Island". The Auk. 29 (3): 339–342. doi:10.2307/4071041. ISSN 0004-8038. JSTOR 4071041. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4071041 ↩

  10. "Domestic Canary". Friends of Midway Atoll. June 4, 2022. Retrieved June 5, 2023. https://friendsofmidway.org/explore/wildlife-plants/birds/domestic-canary/ ↩

  11. Hogan, Linda S. (1999). The Complete Canary Handbook: A Collection of Canary Tales. self-published. ASIN B0006RK73W. http://canarytales.blogspot.com/ ↩

  12. Haldane, John Scott (1896). "The Detection and Estimation of Carbonic Oxide in Air". The Journal of Physiology. XX (6): 521–522. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1896.sp000635. PMC 1512612. PMID 16992351. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1512612 ↩

  13. Haldane, John Scott (1895). "The Action of Carbonic Oxide on Man". The Journal of Physiology. XVIII (5–6): 448. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1895.sp000578. PMC 1514663. PMID 16992272. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1514663 ↩

  14. Biggins, Peter; Kusterbeck, Anne; Hilt, John (2001). Bio-inspired Materials and Sensing Systems. Royal Society of Chemistry. p. 6. ISBN 978-1849731218. Retrieved October 25, 2016. 978-1849731218 ↩

  15. Haldane, John Scott (1895). "The Action of Carbonic Oxide on Man". The Journal of Physiology. XVIII (5–6): 449. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1895.sp000578. PMC 1514663. PMID 16992272. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1514663 ↩

  16. Burton, Catherine (1895). "Risking Life and Wing: Victorian and Edwardian Conceptions of Coal-Mine Canaries". Victorian Review. 40 (2): 143–159. doi:10.1353/vcr.2014.0029. S2CID 163033650. Retrieved July 1, 2020. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/605598/pdf ↩

  17. Page, Walter Hines; Page, Arthur Wilson (August 1914). "Man And His Machines: Resuscitation Cage For Mine Canaries". The World's Work: A History of Our Time. XXVIII (May to October 1914): 474. Retrieved September 19, 2016. https://archive.org/details/worldswork28gard ↩

  18. "The canary resuscitator | Museum of Science and Industry". March 27, 2018. https://blog.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/canary-resuscitator/ ↩

  19. "1986: Coal mine canaries made redundant". BBC News. December 30, 1986. Retrieved May 1, 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/30/newsid_2547000/2547587.stm ↩

  20. Pollock, C. (2016). "The Canary in the Coal Mine". Journal of Avian Medicine and Surgery. 30 (4): 386–391. doi:10.1647/1082-6742-30.4.386. PMID 28107075. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩

  21. "'Plutoed' voted US word of year". BBC News. January 8, 2007. Retrieved May 1, 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6240055.stm ↩

  22. "Fernando Nottebohm, Ph.D." The Rockefeller University. Retrieved August 11, 2012. http://www.rockefeller.edu/research/faculty/labheads/FernandoNottebohm/ ↩

  23. "Neurogenesis in Birds". Neurogenesis. Archived from the original on May 25, 2017. Retrieved August 11, 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20170525232617/http://sites.lafayette.edu/neur401-sp10/what-is-neurogenesis/neurogenesis-in-birds/ ↩

  24. Dethier, V. G. (1956). "Repellents". Annual Review of Entomology. 1 (1). Annual Reviews: 181–202. doi:10.1146/annurev.en.01.010156.001145. ISSN 0066-4170. /wiki/Annual_Review_of_Entomology ↩

  25. Fitzgerald, Dennis (2014). Informants, Cooperating Witnesses, and Undercover Investigations: A Practical Guide to Law, Policy, and Procedure, Second Edition. CRC Press. ISBN 9781466554580. 9781466554580 ↩

  26. Heaton, Trevor (June 21, 2014). "How Norwich fell in love with canaries". Eastern Daily Press. Retrieved November 5, 2020. https://www.edp24.co.uk/features/how-norwich-fell-in-love-with-canaries-1-3651680 ↩

  27. "Allen Athletics" official website, retrieved December 16, 2024 https://allenathletics.org/ ↩