Tanna Ground Dove
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Doves
Doves are an English alternative indie rock band, originating from Wilmslow, Cheshire. The band comprises brothers Jez Williams and Andy Williams , and Jimi Goodwin . The members started working seriously together after meeting at The Haçienda in Manchester. Doves' unofficial fourth member is...
species. Its taxonomic affiliation is uncertain but at its first scientific discussion by Johann Georg Wagler
Johann Georg Wagler
Johann Georg Wagler was a German herpetologist.Wagler was assistant to Johann Baptist von Spix, and became Director of the Zoological Museum at the University of Munich after Spix's death in 1826...
in 1829 it was classified into the genus Gallicolumba
Gallicolumba
Gallicolumba is a mid-sized genus of ground-dwelling doves which occur in rainforests on the Philippines, Indonesia, and in the Pacific region. They are not closely related to the American ground-doves...
(which includes Ground Doves and Bleeding-hearts
Bleeding heart
A bleeding heart is an informal label applied to someone regarded as excessively sympathetic, liberal in a political sense, or both. It is typically considered a derogatory remark...
); its closest relative is possibly the Santa Cruz Ground Dove. It was endemic to the Pacific island of Tanna, Vanuatu
Vanuatu
Vanuatu , officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.Vanuatu was...
(formerly the New Hebrides
New Hebrides
New Hebrides was the colonial name for an island group in the South Pacific that now forms the nation of Vanuatu. The New Hebrides were colonized by both the British and French in the 18th century shortly after Captain James Cook visited the islands...
). Forster (1778-80) records a native name mahk, almost certainly from the Kwamera language.
The taxonomic authority is often given as Wagler (1829). However, although Forster's Descriptiones… was finally printed in 1844, some time after Wagler's treatise, the original description was written in 1775 and thus predates Wagler.
Description
The Tanna Ground Dove was only known from two specimens, which are both now lost. The better-known was a female which was sketched by Georg ForsterGeorg Forster
Johann Georg Adam Forster was a German naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist, and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father on several scientific expeditions, including James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific...
at Tanna during the second circumnavigation
Circumnavigation
Circumnavigation – literally, "navigation of a circumference" – refers to travelling all the way around an island, a continent, or the entire planet Earth.- Global circumnavigation :...
by James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
to the South Sea in August 1774. This painting can be seen in the Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. The specimen's fate is unknown. Another specimen, a male, was recently determined to have been part of the Banksian
Joseph Banks
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...
Collection at the Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
in London (Gibbs et al., 2001). As with the female, only a picture now survives. The circumstances of the bird's acquisition and loss are unknown. According to Forster's description the female specimen had a length of 27 cm.
The head and the breast of the female were rusty brown. The back was coloured dark red to purple. The wings had a dark green hue, with the primaries brown-grey with narrow pale edges. The abdomen was grey. In the male, the forehead, supercilium and lower part of the head, as well as the throat and the breast were white as in the nominate race of the Polynesian Ground Dove, and its belly was reddish-black. The bill was blackish with a slightly swollen cere
Cère
The Cère is a long river in south-western France, left tributary of the Dordogne River. Its source is in the south-western Massif Central, near the mountain Plomb du Cantal...
. The iris was yellowish and the feet were coloured red.
When the Forsters analyzed the crop or gizzard of the dead dove they noticed that it contained a wild nutmeg
Nutmeg
The nutmeg tree is any of several species of trees in genus Myristica. The most important commercial species is Myristica fragrans, an evergreen tree indigenous to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas of Indonesia...
(Myristica inutilis). They searched for this tree on Tanna but their endeavor was not successful. The tree was later determined to be not uncommon in the island's forests but rather small and thus easily overlooked; it is known to the local population as netan (Schmid, 1970).
Extinction
The year of its extinction is unknown, but it can be assumed that the bird disappeared not later than the early 19th century. When Johann Reinhold ForsterJohann Reinhold Forster
Johann Reinhold Forster was a German Lutheran pastor and naturalist of partial Scottish descent who made contributions to the early ornithology of Europe and North America...
and his son Georg saw the female specimen on August 17, 1774 they shot it. The only remaining evidence of its existence, apart from the paintings, is an entry in Forster's notes: "...behind these fields we came into a forest [where] a dove of a new [kind] was shot." Likewise, it is not known why this species became extinct, but introduced rat
Rat
Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...
s are a prime suspect.