Nicobar Pigeon
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| Caloenas nicobarica (Linnaeus, 1758) |
The Nicobar Pigeon (Caloenas nicobarica) is a pigeon which is a resident breeding bird on small uninhabited islands in Indonesia and the Nicobar Islands. It is the only member of the genus Caloenas.
This species nests in dense forest, building a stick nest in a tree and laying one elliptical, faintly blue-tinged white egg. Its flight is quick, with the regular beats and an occasional sharp flick of the wings which are characteristic of pigeons in general.
This is a large, heavy pigeon at 40cm in length. It is mainly metallic green with green and copper hackles on the neck. The head and upper neck, flight feathers and breast are dark grey. The tail is very short and pure white. There is a black knob on the base of the bill, and the strong legs are dark red. This is not a very vocal species, but the call is a coo-coo-coo.
Females are slightly smaller than males; they have a smaller bill knob, shorter hackles and browner underparts. Immature birds have a black tail.
The Nicobar Pigeon roams in flocks from island to island, including inhabited sites, seeking its food of seeds, fruit and some invertebrates, and is attracted to areas where grain is available.
Comparison of mitochondrial cytochrome b and 12S rRNA sequences (Shapiro et al., 2002) suggests the Nicobar Pigeon is the closest living relative of the Dodo and the Rodrigues Solitaire. This does not actually imply a very close relationship, and at any rate, molecular phylogeny of the Indo-Australian pigeons has yielded wildly differing results depending on the gene sequence analyzed.
From subfossil bones found on New Caledonia and Tonga, an extinct species, the Greater Maned Pigeon (Caloenas canacorum) was described. It was a sizeable bird, about one-quarter larger than the Nicobar Pigeon. Considering that it must have been a good source of food, it was most likely hunted to extinction by the first human settlers of the islands where it occurred.
[edit] Gallery
In an English zoo |
Caloenas nicobarica |
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2004). Caloenas nicobarica. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Database entry includes a brief justification of why this species is near threatened
- Grimmett, Richard; Inskipp, Carol & Inskipp, Tim (1999): Birds of India. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.. ISBN 0-691-04910-6
- Shapiro, Beth; Sibthorpe, Dean; Rambaut, Andrew; Austin, Jeremy; Wragg, Graham M.; Bininda-Emonds, Olaf R. P.; Lee, Patricia L. M. & Cooper, Alan (2002): Flight of the Dodo. Science 295: 1683. DOI:10.1126/science.295.5560.1683 (HTML abstract) Supplementary informationde:Kragentaube
fr:Nicobar à camail ms:Burung Punai Emas nl:Manenduif ja:ミノバト
