Nesoenas rodericana

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Nesoenas rodericana
Representation of the bird's bones, 1866

Representation of the bird's bones, 1866

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Pigeon birds (Columbiformes)
Family : Pigeons (Columbidae)
Genre : Nesoenas
Type : Nesoenas rodericana
Scientific name
Nesoenas rodericana
( Milne-Edwards , 1873)

Nesoenas rodericana (English Rodrigues Pigeon, translated Rodrigues pigeon, syn .: Alectroenas rodericana ) is a species of pigeon birds that has become extinct recently. It was an endemic species of the Mascarene Island Rodrigues to which the additional rodericana refers. The species is only known from the description by François Leguat from 1708 and Julien Tafforet from 1726, as well as a few subfossil bone finds. Julien Tafforet's description is the last reference to this species. The astronomer Abbé Guy Pingré observed the Venus transit on Rodrigues in 1761and noted that there are no more specimens of the species. They must therefore have died out between Tafforets and Pingré's visit, presumably through hunting, stalking by rats and forest clearing by turtle hunters in the 1750s.

description

Nesoenas rodericana was smaller than the rose pigeon ( Nesoenas mayeri ) and the Madagascar turtledove ( Nesoenas picturata ). Only a few details have survived from the two observers of the species. Nesoenas rodericana have been described as slightly smaller than our pigeons, slate-colored, bold and good. François Leguat reports that the pigeons were very tame and trusting. Several dozen of these pigeon birds would have waited to be fed during meals eaten outdoors. They showed a particularly great preference for melon seeds. According to Leguat, they sit on trees and build their nests on trees. Already in 1693 the species only nested on small islets off the coast of Rodrigues and only came to the main island to forage. The rats accidentally introduced by Europeans on Rodrigues already prevented a successful nesting on the main island at this time.

Systematics

Nesoenas rodericana is also classified as Rodrigues fruit pigeon in the genus of blue fruit pigeons ( Alectroenas ), but the clearly laterally aligned trabecula lateralis of the sternum and other different features show the lack of reference to Alectroenas . An assignment to the dagger-sting pigeons ( Gallicolumba ) based on the examination of the sternum by Mourer-Chauviré et al. (1999) has been refuted by more recent material and shows that it belongs to the genus Nesoenas, split off from the lovebirds ( Streptopelia ) .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Julian P. Hume: Systematics, morphology, and ecology of pigeons and doves (Aves: Columbidae) of the Mascarene Islands, with three new species. 2011 in: Zootaxa 3124, pp. 1–62. ( Online )

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