Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 1904:78
Choiseul crested pigeon, Choiseul pigeon, Solomon Islands crowned/crested pigeon, Solomons crescent pigeon, Meek's pigeon, Dwarf gura, Solomon Islands groundpigeon, Choiseul ground pigeon
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
This species has many common names, an exhaustive list of which was given in (Tennent, 2009:242).
Conservation Status
Extinct
Last record: January 1904 (Hume & Walters, 2012:154)
IUCN RedList status: Extinct
Distribution
Choiseul, Solomon Islands
Biology & Ecology
Hypodigm
Six skins plus one egg were collected.
AMNH 616456 to 460 (five skins; 460 has had skeleton removed)
Media
References
Original scientific description:
Rothschild, Walter. (1904). Microgoura, n. gen. Bull. Brit. Orn. Cl. 14: 77-78.
Other references:
BirdLife International. (2008). Microgoura meeki. In: IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.1. (http://www.iucnredlist.org). Downloaded on 30 June 2011.
BirdLife International. (2016). Microgoura meeki. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T22691086A93302861. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22691086A93302861.en. Accessed on 02 July 2022.
Boseto, D. and Pikacha, P. (eds.). (2015). Choiseul Biological Expedition October 2014 Solomon Islands: Summary Report. Ecological Solutions (Solomon Islands), PO Box 180, Gizo, Western Province, Solomon Islands.
Brooks, T. 2000. Extinct species. In: BirdLife International (ed.), Threatened Birds of the World, pp. 701-708. Lynx Edicions and BirdLife International, Barcelona and Cambridge, U.K.
Collar, N. J.; Crosby, M. J.; Stattersfield, A. J. 1994. Birds to watch 2: the world list of threatened birds. BirdLife International, Cambridge, U.K.
Diamond, J. M. 1987. Extant unless proven extinct? Or, extinct unless proven extant? Conservation Biology 1(1): 77-79.
Dutson, G. 2011. Birds of Melanesia: Bismarcks, Solomons, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Christopher Helm, London.
Fuller, Errol. (1988). Extinct Birds. New York: Facts on File Publications. 256 pp.
Fuller, E. (2001) Extinct Birds, revised ed. Comstock. ISBN X, 80143954, 96–97.
Gibbs, David, Barnes, Eustace and Cox, John (2001). Pigeons and Doves: A Guide to the Pigeons and Doves of the World. Robertsbridge, Sussex: Pica Press.
Goodwin, D. (1983). Pigeons and doves of the world. Third edn. Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.), London. ["remark[s] that he was ‘reliably’ informed that M. meeki was extant possibly as late as the 1980s" (Tennent, 2009:252)]
Hamlin, H. [1930]. Hand- drawn map titled ‘Choiseul Is., Solomons. The quest for Microgoura meeki Rothsch.’. Whitney South Sea Expedition journal and notes. Unpubl. journal held at American Museum of Natural History, New York.
del Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J., Christie, D.A., Elliott, A. and Fishpool, L.D.C. 2014. HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Non-passerines. Lynx Edicions BirdLife International, Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge, UK.
Hume, Julian Pender and Walters, Michael. (2012). Extinct Birds. London: T & AD Poyser. 544 pp.
Knox, Alan G. and Walters, Michael P. (1994). Extinct and endangered birds in the collections of The Natural History Museum. British Ornithologists' Club Occasional Publications 1: 1-292. [p. 143: "may have survived as late as 1965"]
Mayr E and Diamond JD (2001) The Birds of Northern Melanesia: Speciation, Ecology and Biogeography. Oxford University Press, New York.
Meek, Albert Stewart. (1904). Letter to Karl Jordan dated 18 January 1904 from Gizo Island, Solomon Islands. Unpubl. Meek letter 124b-c, BMNH archives, Tring.
Meek, Albert Stewart. (1913). A Naturalist in Cannibal Land. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
Parker, Shane A. (1967a). New information on the Solomon Islands Crowned Pigeon, Microgoura meeki Rothschild. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club 87: 86-89.
Parker, Shane B. (1967b). A. S. Meek's three expeditions to the Solomon Islands. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club 87: 129-135.
Parker, Shane A. (1972). An unsuccessful search for the Solomon Islands Crowned Pigeon. Emu 72: 24-26.
Pikacha, P. 2005. Kuvojo, an endemic Choi ground pigeon. Honiara, Solomon Islands: Solomon Star Newspaper.
Rothschild, W. and Hartert, E. (1905). Further contributions to our knowledge of the ornis of the Solomon Islands. Novit. Zool. 12: 243-268. [pp. 247]
Sayol, Ferran, Steinbauer, Manuel J., Blackburn, Tim M., Antonelli, Alexandre and Faurby, Søren. (2020). Anthropogenic extinctions conceal widespread evolution of flightlessness in birds. Science Advances 6(49): eabb6095. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb6095 [Supplementary Material (Data File S1)]
Tennent, W. John. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon [i]Microgoura meeki[/i] Rothschild, 1904. [i]Bull. B.O.C.[/i] [b]129[/b](4): 241-253.
Tyrberg, Tommy. (2009). Holocene avian extinctions, pp. 63-106. In: Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). Holocene Extinctions. Oxford, UK & New York, USA: Oxford University Press. xii + 352 pp.
Vargas, Pablo. (2023). Exploring ‘endangered living fossils’ (ELFs) among monotypic genera of plants and animals of the world. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 11: 1100503. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1100503
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