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Curious campus creatures
Beyond being an educational institution, Mount Royal’s campus is home to many critters and creatures. There have been sightings of all sorts of urban wildlife — from deer to bobcats and coyotes. And anyone who has visited campus in the spring will know about the, shall we say, “territorial” geese that take over.
However, there’s been new sightings on campus over the last couple of months. Back in May, a woman who walks through campus on her lunch breaks called CBC’s The Eyeopener to report seeing a rare ghost magpie on one of her outings.
Ghost magpies are also known as leucistic magpies. Leucism, explains Dr. Jon Mee, PhD, chair and professor in the Department of Biology, is a partial loss of pigmentation due to a genetic mutation.
Mee says it happens in birds and other species too. Why it happens however, remains unknown.
“We don’t generally know the specific mutation. There has been some research on the patterns of which species get this lack of melanin in the feathers. Because it is so rare, it is really hard to study.”
Mee says that researchers in China have studied the leucism that occurs in peacocks. “But in most cases they sort of pop up as one offs and they are very, very rare across most species.”
He also points out the difference between leucism and albinism. Albinism, Mee explains, is the shutdown of all pigment production, which is why when you see those species, the entire body is lacking pigment and the eyes are red.
Leucism isn’t always the entire body. It can be partial, too. In a bird, for example, it could be found just on just the head or just some of the feathers.
Another sighting
In late June, Associate Professor and Archivist and Special Collections Librarian Peter Houston and his wife spotted what is believed to be the same ghost magpie on campus once again.
“My wife Lauren noticed it while we were driving by on Richard Road. Once we were parked I went to investigate and it was still here, pecking away at the grass,” he says.
It was in the greenspace on the back side of the East Residences.
“It was quite chatty and approached me curiously as it was picking away,” Houston says. The bird stayed long enough for him to snap a few pictures, capturing just about every angle of the rare creature.
