The spice imperial pigeon (''Ducula myristicivora'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

in the family

Columbidae Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, where it occurs in the eastern

Moluccas The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located ...

and the

Raja Ampat Islands Raja Ampat, or the ''Four Kings'', is an archipelago located off the northwest tip of Bird's Head Peninsula on the island of New Guinea, in Indonesia's Southwest Papua province. It comprises over 1,500 small islands, cays, and shoals surrounding ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are subtropical or tropical moist lowland

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s and subtropical or tropical mangrove forests. It eats, and is an important disperser of seeds for, fleshy fruits.

Taxonomy

The spice imperial pigeon was formally described in 1786 by the Austrian naturalist

Giovanni Antonio Scopoli Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (sometimes Latinized as Johannes Antonius Scopolius) (3 June 1723 – 8 May 1788) was an Italian physician and naturalist. His biographer Otto Guglia named him the "first anational European" and the "Linnaeus of the Au ...

and given the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''Columba myristicivora''. The specific epithet ''myristicivora'' combines the botanical genus name ''

Myristica ''Myristica'' is a genus of trees in the family Myristicaceae. There are over 150 species, distributed in Asia and the western Pacific. The type species of the genus, and the most economically important member, is ''Myristica fragrans'' (the nut ...

'' that contains the nutmeg (from the Ancient Greek ''muristikos '' meaning "fragrant"), with the Latin ''-vorus'' meaning "eating". The

type locality Type locality may refer to: * Type locality (biology) * Type locality (geology) See also * Local (disambiguation) * Locality (disambiguation) {{disambiguation ...

is New Guinea. This species is now placed in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

Ducula ''Ducula'' is a genus of the pigeon family Columbidae, collectively known as imperial pigeons. They are large to very large pigeons with a heavy build and medium to long tails. They are arboreal, feed mainly on fruit and are closely related to th ...

'' that was introduced by the English naturalist

Brian Houghton Hodgson Brian Houghton Hodgson (1 February 1800 or more likely 1801 – 23 May 1894) was a pioneer naturalist and ethnologist working in India and Nepal where he was a British Resident. He described numerous species of birds and mammals from the Hi ...

in 1836. The

Geelvink imperial pigeon The Geelvink imperial pigeon (''Ducula geelvinkiana'') is a species of bird in the family Columbidae. It is endemic to Indonesia's Schouten Islands (also known as the Geelvink Islands) and Mios Num Island, which lie north of New Guinea. Its natur ...

(''D. geelvinkiana'') of the Schouten (or Geelvink) Islands was formerly considered conspecific, but was recognized as a distinct species by the

IOC The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental Sports governing body, sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an associ ...

in 2021.

References

spice imperial pigeon Birds of North Maluku Birds of the Raja Ampat Islands Birds of West Papua spice imperial pigeon Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Endemic birds of Indonesia {{Columbiformes-stub