Orange Fruit Dove

Orange Fruit Dove
male
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Columbiformes
Family:	Columbidae
Genus:	Ptilinopus
Species:	P. victor
Binomial name
Ptilinopus victor Gould, 1872

The Orange Fruit Dove (Ptilinopus victor), also known as Flame Dove, is a small, approximately 20 cm (8 in) long, short-tailed fruit-dove in the family Columbidae. One of the most colorful doves, the male has a golden olive head and elongated bright orange "hair-like" body feathers. The golden-olive remiges are typically covered by the long orange wing coverts when perched. The legs, bill and orbital skin are bluish-green and the iris is whitish. The female is a dark green bird with blackish tail and orange-yellow undertail coverts. The young resembles female.

The Orange Dove is distributed and endemic to forests of Vanua Levu, Taveuni, Rabi, Kioa, Qamea and Laucala islands of Fiji. The diet consists mainly of various small fruits, berries, caterpillars and insects. The female usually lays one white egg.

An Orange Dove features in novelist Umberto Eco's "The Island of the Day Before"

The Orange Fruit Dove is closely related to the allopatric Whistling Fruit Dove and Golden Fruit Dove.

A common species throughout its limited range, the Orange Fruit Dove is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

References

• BirdLife International (2004). Ptilinopus victor. 2006. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. www.iucnredlist.org. Retrieved on 8 December 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern.

External links

• BirdLife Species Factsheet
• IUCN Red List
• Photos of a male Orange Dove. International Dove Society.