Superb Fruit-dove

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Superb Fruit-dove

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Columbiformes
Family:	Columbidae
Genus:	Ptilinopus
Species:	P. superbus

Binomial name

Ptilinopus superbus
Temminck, 1809

The Superb Fruit-dove, Ptilinopus superbus (also known as Purple-crowned Fruit-dove), is a medium-sized, up to 23cm long, colourful fruit-dove in the family Columbidae.

Native to Australasia region, the Superb Fruit-dove is distributed in rainforests of New Guinea, Australia, Solomon Islands, the Philippines and Sulawesi of Indonesia. In Australia, it is found from southern Victoria further north, where it becomes more common to Cape York in Queensland. In some areas of its range, such as New Guinean rainforest, it is a resident bird; in apparently more marginal or seasonal habitat suach as in Australia, flocks are known to move about according to the availability of food (Frith et al. 1976).

Sexes are sexually dimorphic. The males are superbly coloured with a fire orange nape, green ear, purple cap, yellow eye and eye-ring. Its grey breast is divided from abdomen by a wide dark blue band. White leg is broken up green patches. The wings are olive green covered in blue spots and the tail is tipped with white. The females are dominated by green all over, with white abdomen, blue wing tip, light blue breast and small dark blue spot on back of head and yellow eye and eye-ring.

Although has a colourful plumages, it camouflages well amongst foliage of rainforest trees. The Superb Fruit-dove feeds primarily upon fruits and berries. In the Port Moresby area, the bulk of its diet was found to consist of figs, notably Ficus albipila and Ficus benjamina, Canarium australianum drupes, and Archontophoenix, Calamus and Livistona palm fruit. Also frequently eaten were the fruits of cinnamon trees (Cinnamomum sp.), Litsea, Neolitsea and Cryptocarya. Less important food were fruits of Ylang-ylang (Cananga odorata), Syzygium, and Vitex cofassus. They seem to eat not as large fruit as some of their congeners do, with the maximum recorded volume being some 2,5 cm³, meaning, in a spherical fruit, some 1,7 cm diameter (Frith et al. 1976)

It flies with a whistling of wings. The voice is a steady coo-coo-coo-coo. The female lays one white egg in a nest of small platform of twigs in a small bushy tree.

Widespread and common throughout its large range, the Superb Fruit-dove is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

[edit] References

BirdLife International (2004). Ptilinopus superbus. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 9 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern