Many-colored Fruit-Dove
Ptilinopus perousii
A spectacular dove with a red crown and shawl, a white face, a yellow neck, a yellow back with gray chevrons, a gray uppertail, a red undertail, and a flecked red breast. Often found in pairs, but can gather in large groups at fruiting trees. Female similar to female Crimson-crowned Fruit-Dove, but has a less reddish cap and a darker green neck. Gives two commonly heard calls, a typical pigeon-like cooing phrase likened to the words “let it go, let it go,” and a series of cooing notes that rapid increases in speed like a marble dropped on a hard surface.
Identification
It is a small dove, 23 cm (9.1 in) in length. Adults weigh in at 90 g (3.2 oz). The male is mostly pale yellow-white with a red crown and red bar across the back. The female is mostly green, darker on the back and greyer on the head and breast. Her crown is red while the undertail-coverts are red in Samoan birds and yellow in birds from Fiji and Tonga.<p>Male Ptilinopus perousii perousii is pale on the bottom and yellow on top. There is also a crimson band and corona. The female is said to resemble the purple-capped fruit dove; however, there is no yellow band. They have grey on the bottom while green on top. It only has a crimson corona unlike the male.
Taxonomy
The many-colored fruit dove is in the columbid family with the other doves and pigeons. It a fruit dove meaning it belongs to genus Ptilinopus. However, it is very far from most other doves and has no close relatives due to it being endemic to the South Pacific islands. The two subspecies are Ptilinopus perousii mariae and P. p. perousii. The mariae subspecies is found in Fiji and Tonga. <p>Its English name is literal: it is a many-colored dove that eats fruit. The Samoan name manuma means shy bird and comes from the Samoan words for bird and shame. Their Latin name comes from Captain Jean Francois de Galaup Comte de la Pérouse of the French navy, of whom explored the Pacific.
- Scientific name
- Ptilinopus perousii
- Authority
- Peale, 1849
- Order
- Columbiformes
- Family
- Columbidae
- Genus
- Ptilinopus
Range and habitat
Manuma are found across many islands and archipelagos across Polynesia with a range of 660,000 sq. km. They are most often found in Fiji and Tonga. They can be found in lowland subtropical and tropical broadleaf forests. In these forests, they are found in the canopies. They can also be found in urban areas. The manuma's fossil range is from 0.12 million years ago to today, exclusively in the quaternary.
- Migration
- Nomadic movement
Behavior
The many-colored fruit dove is a frugivore. It forages the canopies of trees in search of figs. On Samoa and American Samoa it is mostly the banyan. This strict diet keeps the two fig species in check; however, any decline in the amount of figs may be a disaster for the many-colored fruit dove. However, on Fiji and Tonga, manuma are known to eat fruits of ylang ylang (Cananga odorata), bishop wood (Bischofia javanica), and māgele (Trema cannabina).: 105, 128 <p>Manuma are often found in small flocks. In each flock there are normally more males than females.
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
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