Because the pigeon's ancestors were dinosaurs in ancient times, only with the passage of time and the extinction of the dinosaurs, we can now just understand how the dinosaurs walked based on the pigeon's gait. If you look closely at a pigeon, you will notice that its head keeps shaking when it walks, just like it is drunk. However, pigeons don't get drunk. Scientists believe this is their unique way of behaving, which dinosaurs also seem to have followed.
In 1978, a group of researchers from a laboratory at Queen's University in Canada got together to study why pigeons in squares always move their heads back and forth when they walk. So they put a Plexiglas box on a treadmill with a pigeon inside. By watching the pigeon walk, they analyzed what it was. I don't know how to shake my head.
The pigeons in the square were strange, always shaking their heads, as if they were secretly tapping a beat, as if they were all taking part in a silent square dance. So why are they shaking their heads?A 1978 treadmill experiment provided the answer. Researchers concluded that pigeons don't actually shake their heads. They're just taking a walk. When the researchers studied the pigeons in slow motion, they found that the pigeons' head movements actually consisted of two parts, which the scientists called the "push" and "hold" phases.
"In the 'push' phase, the pigeon's head extends forward about 5 centimeters, and then it enters the 'hold' phase, in which the pigeon's head doesn't move and its body moves forward. What we see as a "head bob" is actually a smooth slide of the head forward, waiting for the body to follow. We think it is a "head bob" because the pigeon is moving very fast.