Choiseul Pigeon Microgoura meeki Scientific name definitions

31–35 cm. Forehead and face black; top of head bluish grey becoming darker on back and breast; pinkish wash below eye; bushy backward-pointing crest of hair-like feathers on head; lower back and rump brownish; underparts dark buffy chestnut; wings dark brown; bill, upper mandible black, lower mandible red; gallinule-like frontal shield pale blue; iris colour uncertain, but probably either dark lemon or brown; legs purplish red.

Not recorded since 1904 (1 Diamond, J.M. (1987). Extant unless proven extinct? Or, extinct unless proven extant? Conserv. Biol. 1(1): 77–79. Close ), despite several intensive searches and interviews with villagers (2 Collar, N. J., M. J. Crosby, and A. J. Stattersfield (1994). Birds to Watch 2: the World List of Threatened Birds. BirdLife International Conservation Series 4. BirdLife International, Cambridge, U.K. Close ). Causes of extinction uncertain but likely to have been predation by feral cats and dogs (3 Tennent, W.J. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 1904. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club 129(4): 241–253. Close ).

Choiseul I, in NW Solomons; known from six skins and a single egg (4 Knox, A. G., and M. P. Walters (1994). Extinct and Endangered Birds in the Collections of the Natural History Museum. British Ornithologists’ Club Occasional Publications 1. British Ornithologists’ Club, Tring, UK. Close ). Claims that it may have occurred on other islands from Bougainville S to Malaita are speculative (3 Tennent, W.J. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 1904. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club 129(4): 241–253. Close ).

Not known; sometimes claimed to have inhabited remote cloud forests in the island’s interior, but it seems more probable that it inhabited coastal and low-lying forests, including swampy areas (5 Tennent, W.J. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 191494. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 129(4): 241-253. Close ); likely to have been largely ground-dwelling, feeding and nesting close to the forest floor. Local people reported that it roosted in small groups (5 Tennent, W.J. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 191494. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 129(4): 241-253. Close ).

No information available.

Unknown. Local people reported that it sang in evening at roost-sites (5 Tennent, W.J. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 191494. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 129(4): 241-253. Close ).

One dark cream-coloured egg laid on the ground and reported to be relatively small for the bird’s size (5 Tennent, W.J. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 191494. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 129(4): 241-253. Close ).

EXTINCT. Known only from six specimens and a single egg (5 Tennent, W.J. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 191494. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 129(4): 241-253. Close ) taken on Choiseul in Jan 1904, probably on NW coast of the island (5 Tennent, W.J. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 191494. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 129(4): 241-253. Close ). The collector, Meek, is sometimes said to have acquired the skins in trade from a coastal village, but there is some evidence that he collected the specimens himself (5 Tennent, W.J. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 191494. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 129(4): 241-253. Close ); what is certain is that he never penetrated the interior, as local human population there thought to be hostile; he was informed by local native boys that the species also occurred on the adjacent islands of Santa Isabel and Malaita, but there is no definite evidence of this and it is clear that local people (who claimed that the species was easily caught at its low roost-sites) frequently confused the species with other pigeons (5 Tennent, W.J. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 191494. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 129(4): 241-253. Close ); Meek did not encounter it on Bougainville. Five veteran collectors searched Choiseul for two months in 1927 and 1929 and did not encounter the species, and further serious searches by Shane Parker (in 1960s) and Jared Diamond (in 1974) were also unsuccessful (5 Tennent, W.J. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 191494. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 129(4): 241-253. Close ). Members of local population, questioned regarding the disappearance of the species, believe that feral cats, originally brought to Choiseul by missionaries (5 Tennent, W.J. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 191494. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 129(4): 241-253. Close ), may have been responsible for its extirpation perhaps as late as early 1940s (based on reports of local people), although there have been mistaken suggestions in the literature that the bird persisted until 1965 or even 1980s (5 Tennent, W.J. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 191494. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 129(4): 241-253. Close ). On the other hand, it might have always been rare (earlier visitors to the island never reported it) and even already virtually extinct at the time of Meek’s visit (5 Tennent, W.J. (2009). A cat among the pigeons! Known specimens and supposed distribution of the extinct Solomons Crested Pigeon Microgoura meeki Rothschild, 191494. Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 129(4): 241-253. Close ).