Neododo
Bred beginning in 1853 by an eccentric nobleman in Shropshire, the Neododo is too large and heavy to fly, while falling considerably short of the mass and height of the extinct dodo, a relative. Lord Hawley’s ultimate project, to reintroduce a bred-back dodo bird to Mauritius for the purposes of establishing a meat industry, was never realized.

Bloodove
As omnivores pigeons can eat meat, but they often prefer vegetable matter instead. This breed, originating in Montana, was an attempt to breed a pidge-of-prey that exclusively ate meat and was able to take living animals. The idea was to establish a bird-fighting ring, but a small population of pigeons that subsisted on carrion was as far as the idea got

Colombe de Levage (Lift-Pidge)
Originating from the Argonne in France, this was an attempt by the French Force de Pigeonne to increase the carrying capacity of carrier pigeons through selective breeding. While they succeeded in quintupling the birds’ cargo capacity by 1888, this was at the expense of range, as the overloaded birds could barely fly a quarter of the distance, leading to the discontinuation of the breeding program by 1910.

Megacoo
Bred in San Francisco by a financier who missed songbirds and was bedeviled by feral pigeons, the Megacoo was an attempt to breed a pigeon that sang like a songbird. Instead, the most that resulted was a pigeon whose coos were 200% louder and 300% longer but otherwise identical. Local legend has it that the pigeons in the Wickham Slope neighborhood are still unusually loud as a result.

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