|
The Mauritius blue pigeon (''Alectroenas nitidissima'') is an extinct species of blue pigeon formerly endemic to the Mascarene island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar. It has two extinct relatives from the Mascarenes and three extant ones from other islands. It is the type species of the genus of blue pigeons, ''Alectroenas''. It had white hackles around the head, neck and breast and blue plumage on the body, and it was red on the tail and the bare parts of the head. These colours were thought similar to those of the Dutch flag, a resemblance reflected in some of the bird's names. The males had red foreheads, and the juveniles may have been partially green. It was 30 cm (12 in) long and larger and more robust than any other blue pigeon species. It could raise its hackles into a ruff, which it used for display. Its call sounded like "barf barf" and it also made a cooing noise. It fed on fruits, nuts, and molluscs, and was once widespread in the forests of Mauritius. The bird was first mentioned in the 17th century and was described several times thereafter, but very few accounts describe the behaviour of living specimens. Several stuffed and at least one live specimen reached Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Only three stuffed specimens exist today, and only one bird was ever depicted when alive. The species is thought to have become extinct in the 1830s due to deforestation and predation. == Taxonomy == The first record of the Mauritius blue pigeon is two sketches in the 1601–1603 journal of the Dutch ship ''Gelderland''. The birds appear to have been freshly killed or stunned. The drawings were made by the Dutch artist Joris Joostensz Laerle on Mauritius, but were not published until 1969. François Cauche in 1651 briefly mentions "white, black and red turtle doves", encountered in 1638, which is thought to be the first unequivocal mention of the bird. The next account is that of Jean-François Charpentier de Cossigny in the mid-18th century. Pierre Sonnerat brought the bird to the attention of ornithologists in 1782, calling it ''Pigeon Hollandais'' (Dutch pigeon), a French vernacular name that derives from its white, dark blue and red colouration, which reminded Sonnerat of the Dutch flag. He had collected two specimens during a voyage in 1774. These syntype specimens were deposited in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris. By 1893, only one of them, specimen MNHN n°C.G. 2000-727, still existed, and had been damaged by sulphuric acid in an attempt at fumigation. Since Sonnerat named and described them in French, the scientific naming of the bird was left to Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, who did not observe a specimen himself, but latinised Sonnerat's description. He named the bird ''Columba nitidissima'', which means "most brilliant pigeon". When Johann Friedrich Gmelin redescribed the bird with the species name ''franciae'' ("of France") in 1789, he referred to the now-familiar tricolour which had just been flown for the first time. Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre used the name ''batavica'' ("the Dutch one") in his redescription in 1790. Another skin arrived at the Paris museum in 1800, collected by Colonel M. Mathieu for Louis Dufresne. It was sold in 1819 among other items, was sent to Edinburgh, and is now in the National Museum of Scotland as specimen MU No. 624. It was not identified as a Mauritius blue pigeon until Alfred Newton saw it in 1879. The last specimen recorded was shot in Savanne in 1826 and given to Julien Desjardins, founder of the Mauritius Natural History Museum in Port Louis, where it is still located, though in poor condition. Only these three taxidermic specimens still exist. In 1840 George Robert Gray named a new genus, ''Alectroenas'', for the Mauritius blue pigeon; ''alektruon'' in Greek means domestic cock, and ''oinas'' means dove. ''Alectroenas nitidissima'' is the type species of the genus, which includes all blue pigeons. The binomial name was emended from ''A. nitidissimus'' to ''A. nitidissima'' in 2014. Subfossil remains of the Mauritius blue pigeon were collected in the Mare aux Songes swamp by Théodore Sauzier in 1889. More were collected by Etienne Thirioux around 1900. They are thought to have been found near Le Pouce and Plaine des Roches. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mauritius blue pigeon」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|