The ring-tailed pigeon (''Patagioenas caribaea'') 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 lightweigh ...

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 elsew ...

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The ring-tailed pigeon is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

. Along with the Chilean pigeon (''P. araycana'') and

band-tailed pigeon The band-tailed pigeon (''Patagioenas fasciata'') is a medium-sized bird of the Americas. Its closest relatives are the Chilean pigeon and the ring-tailed pigeon, which form a clade of ''Patagioenas'' with a terminal tail band and iridescent pl ...

(''P. fasciata''), it may form a superspecies.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 24 August 2021. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved August 24, 2021

Description

The male ring-tailed pigeon is long and the female . One bird whose sex was not reported weighed . The adult male's head, neck, and underparts are reddish to pinkish. Its hindneck has a metallic green or bronze patch and the rest of the upperparts are brownish gray. The tail is gray (darker near the body) with a slate band across its middle. The eye is orange surrounded by bare red skin. The adult female is similar to the male but with an olive or brown cast to the wings, redder underparts, and a less metallic hindneck. The juvenile is mostly grayish with a brown cast and a fawn to cinnamon belly.Baptista, L. F., P. W. Trail, H. M. Horblit, P. F. D. Boesman, and E. F. J. Garcia (2020). Ring-tailed Pigeon (''Patagioenas caribaea''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.ritpig.01 retrieved September 14, 2021

Distribution and habitat

The ring-tailed pigeon is found only in Jamaica, and is most common in the John Crow Mountains, the eastern Blue Mountains, and the Cockpit Country. It mostly inhabits wet highland forest, and wet limestone forest in the Cockpit Country. In elevation it ranges as high as .

Behaviour

Feeding

The ring-tailed pigeon feeds only on fruit, often taken while climbing or hanging upside-down in trees.

Breeding

The ring-tailed pigeon breeds in spring and summer. The nest is a thick platform made of twigs and lined with leaves and bark. It is placed high in a tree and hidden in climbing vegetation.

Vocalisation

The ring-tailed pigeon's advertising call is "a series of 4–5 cooing notes" rendered as "cooOOh...cooOOh...cooOOh...".

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

initially assessed the ring-tailed pigeon as Critically Endangered but since 2000 has rated it Vulnerable "because anecdotal evidence and the many threats it faces indicate that the range and population must now be small and declining." "Both hunting and forest destruction remain rampant, and pose very serious threats".

References

External links

BirdLife Species Factsheet.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q736016 ring-tailed pigeon Endemic birds of Jamaica ring-tailed pigeon ring-tailed pigeon Taxonomy articles created by Polbot