Alectroenas nitidissima (Mauritius Blue Pigeon)

[Peter]

Dec 17, 2011 15:06:21 GMT simontonge said:

Julian Hume's recent paper on extinct Mascarene columbids prompted me to look back at some photos I took in Mauritius many years ago. While looking at a very bad picture of a Fregilupus specimen taken at the Mauritius Institute in 1989 I realized that I had inadvertently taken an image of their specimen of the Mauritius Blue Pigeon in the background of the photo! I cropped it out, hence the odd shape, and thought it might be of interest to other forum readers as the Paris and Edinburgh specimens have been illustrated here before but not, as far as I can tell, the Mauritius one.

Simon, thank you for posting this! There are not many pictures of a stuffed Mauritius Blue Pigeon. I also enjoyed seeing all the other pictures you've posted a while ago!

[surroundx]

www.redorbit.com/education/reference_library/animal_kingdom/aves_birds/1113124743/mauritius-blue-pigeon-alectroenas-nitidissima/

[Sebbe]

Captive birds on Dutch Mauritius: bad-tempered parrots, warty pigeons and notes on other native animals

During the occupation of Mauritius by the Dutch in the seventeenth century, live dodos and other animals were transported to the east and west as curiosities and gifts by the Dutch East India Company. How these animals managed to survive these journeys, when human casualties on-board ship were so high, has remained a mystery. Here, we present for the first time a translation of the recently discovered report of Johannes Pretorius, who stayed on Mauritius from 1666 to 1669. Pretorius kept a number of now extinct birds in captivity, which was probably an experiment to ascertain their captive requirements prior to transportation. He also provides the first ecological details of some of the now-extinct birds and Mauritian giant tortoises, the impact of introduced animals, and highlights how little of the interior of Mauritius had actually been explored during this time.

www.tandfonline.com/eprint/WnFVArrgx5iAKTXkS7cM/full#

[another specialist]

Alectroenas nitidissima (Scopoli, 1786) SYNTYPE

science.mnhn.fr/institution/mnhn/collection/zo/item/mo-2000-727?listIndex=1&listCount=2329

[surroundx]

Jouanin, Christian. (1962). Inventaire des oiseaux éteints ou en voie d’extinction conservés au Muséum de Paris. Terre et Vie 109: 275-301.

[surroundx]

Voisin, Claire, Voisin, Jean-François, Jouanin, Christian and Bour, Roger. (2004). Liste des types d’oiseaux des collections du Muséum National d’Histoire naturelle de Paris. 13: Gangas et Pigeons (Pteroclididae et Columbidae), première partie. Zoosystema 26(1): 107-128.

[surroundx]

Cheke, Anthony S. (2020). Correcting an egregious error – rediscovering early images of the Seychelles Blue Pigeon Alectroenas pulcherrimus, with a comment on Sonnerat’s original misapplied geographical location. Phelsuma 28: 54-59.