The spectacled imperial pigeon (''Ducula perspicillata'') 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 else ...
to the
Maluku Islands
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 ...
.
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 and subtropical or tropical
mangrove forest.
Taxonomy and systematics
The spectacled imperial pigeon is a species in the large genus of imperial pigeons, ''
Ducula''. Within the genus, it is most closely related to the
Seram imperial pigeon, with which it is sometimes considered
conspecific
Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species.
Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organis ...
. These two species form a species group with the
green imperial pigeon
The green imperial pigeon (''Ducula aenea'') is a large forest pigeon. The large range extends from Nepal, southern India and Sri Lanka eastwards to southern China, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Taxonomy
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Ja ...
and
elegant imperial pigeon.
The species' generic name comes from the
New Latin
New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...
''ducula'' (duke), while the
specific epithet ''perspicillata'' is from the
Modern Latin
New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy a ...
''perspicillata'' (spectacled), derived the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''perspicillum'' (lens), which is itself from the Latin ''perspicere'' (to see through).
Alternative names for the orange fruit dove include white-eyed imperial pigeon, white-spectacled imperial pigeon, and Moluccan imperial pigeon.
It is monotypic. However, the Seram imperial pigeon is sometimes considered to be a subspecies of this species.
References
Cited text
*
spectacled imperial pigeon
Birds of the Maluku Islands
spectacled imperial pigeon
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot
{{Columbiformes-stub