Columba livia
The rock pigeon is a member of the bird family Columbidae (doves and pigeons). It's a fairly large pigeon with pale gray overall with two bold black wingbars and iridescent purple and green on neck. This species has wild and feral populations throughout the world. True wild birds nest on cliffs and in caves from western Europe to central Asia. Feral varieties are common in cities and farmland, often in large flocks. This sample is from a breed of domestic pigeon (Columba livia domestica) which includes about 1,000 different breeds and descends from the wild rock dove species. This sample is part of a trio assembly (offspring bColLiv1, mother bColLiv2, father bColLiv3). The individuals were sampled in Davis, California by Thomas Bishop and Wojciech Panek, and coordinated by Matthew Biegler and Erich D. Jarvis to generate a high-quality reference genome for the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP). Sequencing and genome assembly were conducted at the Vertebrate Genomes Lab (VGL) at the Rockefeller University, led by Erich D. Jarvis, Jennifer Balacco, Giulio Formenti. Assembly and curation was performed by Simona Secomandi.