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Columba Vitiensis
The metallic pigeon (''Columba vitiensis'') also known as white-throated pigeon, is a medium-sized, up to 37 cm long, bird in the family Dove, Columbidae. Identification The adult has an iridescent purple and green crown, black wing and uppertail coverts, yellowish red Iris (anatomy), iris, yellow Beak, bill, red orbital skin, white or grey chin and ear coverts, and purplish feet. It has a dull chestnut or glossed purple green below, depends on subspecies. The nominate form ''C. v. vitiensis'' from Fiji has a dull underparts, while subspecies ''C. v. halmaheira'' of Maluku Islands has the most iridescent plumage. Both sexes are similar. The young is duller than adult. Distribution The metallic pigeon is distributed to tropical forests of eastern Indonesia, the Philippines, New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Samoa and surrounding southwest Pacific islands. A subspecies, the Lord Howe pigeon, used to exist on Lord Howe Island in Australia, but was exterminated b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean René Constant Quoy
Jean René Constant Quoy (10 November 1790 in Maillé, Vendée, Maillé – 4 July 1869 in Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, Rochefort) was a French naval surgeon, zoologist and anatomist. In 1806, he began his medical studies at the school of naval medicine at Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, Rochefort, afterwards serving as an auxiliary-surgeon on a trip to the Antilles (1808–1809). After earning his medical doctorate in 1814 at Montpellier, he was surgeon-major on a journey to Réunion (1814–1815). Along with Joseph Paul Gaimard, he served as naturalist and surgeon aboard the ''Uranie'' under Louis de Freycinet from 1817 to 1820, and on the ''French ship Astrolabe (1817), Astrolabe'' (1826–1829) under the command of Jules Dumont d'Urville. In July 1823 he and Gaimard presented a paper to the Académie royale des Sciences on the origin of coral reefs, taking issue with the then widespread belief that these were constructed by coral polyps from bases in very deep water and arguin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east. At in area (as defined with a southern Antarctic border), the Pacific Ocean is the largest division of the World Ocean and the hydrosphere and covers approximately 46% of Earth's water surface and about 32% of the planet's total surface area, larger than its entire land area ().Pacific Ocean . '' Britannica Concise.'' 2008: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. The centers of both the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birds Described In 1830
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight Bird skeleton, skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the common ostrich. There are over 11,000 living species and they are split into 44 Order (biology), orders. More than half are passerine or "perching" birds. Birds have Bird wing, wings whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the Flightless bird, loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemism, endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Columba (genus)
The bird genus ''Columba'' comprises a genus of medium to large pigeons. The terms "dove" and "pigeon" are used indiscriminately for smaller and larger Columbidae, respectively. ''Columba'' species are mostly termed "pigeons", and in many cases "wood pigeons", but some (including the type species of the genus), are termed "doves". The rock dove (''C. livia'') has given rise to the majority of domesticated pigeon breeds, such as the racing pigeon and the fantail pigeon, some of which have become feral. Meanwhile, "wood pigeon" by itself usually means the common wood pigeon (''C. palumbus''). This genus as understood today is native to the Old World, but some (notably the domestic and feral rock dove) have been introduced outside their natural range, for example in the Americas. Etymology The term ''columba'' comes from the Latin ''columba'', "a dove", the feminine form of ''columbus'', "a male dove", itself the latinisation of the Greek κόλυμβος (''kolumbos''), "dive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Handbook Of Australian, New Zealand And Antarctic Birds
The ''Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds'', known as ''HANZAB'', is the pre-eminent scientific reference on birds in the region, which includes Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, and the surrounding ocean and subantarctic islands. It attempts to collate all that is known about each of the 957 species recorded. ''HANZAB'' is the largest project ever undertaken by the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU), also known as Birds Australia. It was prepared over 20 years by teams of full and part-time writers, editors and artists, and published by Oxford University Press in seven volumes between 1990 and 2006 (volumes 1 and 7 each in two parts). Contents of each volume # Ratites to Ducks (in two parts) (1990) 1408 pp. # Raptors to Lapwings (1993) 1048 pp. # Snipe to Pigeons (1996) 1086 pp. # Parrots to Dollarbird (1999) 1248 pp. # Tyrant-flycatchers to Chats (2001) 1272 pp. # Pardalotes to Shrike-thrushes (2002) 1263 pp. # Boatbill to Starlings (in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IUCN Red List
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological species. A series of Regional Red Lists, which assess the risk of extinction to species within a political management unit, are also produced by countries and organizations. The goals of the Red List are to provide scientifically based information on the status of species and subspecies at a global level, to draw attention to the magnitude and importance of threatened biodiversity, to influence national and international policy and decision-making, and to provide information to guide actions to conserve biological diversity. Major species assessors include BirdLife International, the Institute of Zoology (the research division of the Zoological Society of London), the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, and many Specialist Groups w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller islands. It has a total area of , making it the list of countries and dependencies by area, sixth-largest country in the world and the largest in Oceania. Australia is the world's flattest and driest inhabited continent. It is a megadiverse countries, megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and Climate of Australia, climates including deserts of Australia, deserts in the Outback, interior and forests of Australia, tropical rainforests along the Eastern states of Australia, coast. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south-east Asia 50,000 to 65,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Period, last glacial period. By the time of British settlement, Aboriginal Australians spoke 250 distinct l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Howe Island
Lord Howe Island (; formerly Lord Howe's Island) is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, part of the Australian state of New South Wales. It lies directly east of mainland Port Macquarie, northeast of Sydney, and about southwest of Norfolk Island. It is about long and between wide with an area of , though just of that comprise the low-lying developed part of the island. The island is named after Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe. Along the west coast is a sandy semi-enclosed sheltered coral reef lagoon. Most of the population lives in the north, while the south is dominated by forested hills rising to the highest point on the island, Mount Gower (). The Lord Howe Island Group comprises 28 islands, islets, and rocks. Apart from Lord Howe Island itself, the most notable of these is the volcanic and uninhabited Ball's Pyramid about to the southeast of Howe. To the north lies the Admiralty Group, a cluster of seven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Howe Pigeon
The Lord Howe pigeon or white-throated pigeon (''Columba vitiensis godmanae''), is an extinct subspecies of the metallic pigeon which existed on Lord Howe Island. It became extinct in the 1850s. Description The Lord Howe pigeon was mostly brown, with a purple head and breast, and a white patch on its throat. Ecology The bird was found in an arboreal habitat, particularly closed forests. Occurring throughout the lowlands of Lord Howe Island, it is likely the species fed on fruit and seeds. Records Lord Howe Island was discovered in 1788. A written report was made by Arthur Bowes, who landed on the island when the '' Lady Penrhyn'' stopped there in 1788. Parties from his ship collected many birds from the island, including many Lord Howe pigeons, which they subsequently ate. The tameness of the birds made hunting particularly easy. The ''Lady Penrhyn'' had been travelling with the ''Charlotte'', and her Captain, Thomas Gilbert, wrote that he captured five or six dozen of the bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
