Alectroenas nitidissimus · Epoch Explorer

The Mauritius blue pigeon is an extinct species of blue pigeon formerly endemic to the Mascarene island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar. It has two extinct relatives from the Mascarenes and three extant ones from other islands. It is the type species of the genus of blue pigeons, Alectroenas. It had white hackles around the head, neck and breast and blue plumage on the body, and it was red on the tail and the bare parts of the head. These colours were thought similar to those of the Dutch flag, a resemblance reflected in its French common name, Pigeon Hollandais. The juveniles may have been partially green. It was 30 cm (12 in) long and larger and more robust than any other blue pigeon species. It fed on fruits, nuts, and molluscs, and was once widespread in the forests of Mauritius.

Geni · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred

Also called: Mauritius blue pigeonPBDB
Sits inside: AlectroenasPBDB
Diet: frugivore, granivorePBDB, for Columbidae
Life habit: volantPBDB, for Columbidae
Motility: actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment: terrestrialPBDB, for Columbidae

Time the record covers

At most 12 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

4 occurrences of Alectroenas nitidissimus on record, most of them in the Holocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

4 occurrences

Holocene100%

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Alectroenas nitidissimus and its relatives

Holocene

Where Alectroenas nitidissimus and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

26 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Alectroenas nitidissimus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

2 references

Systematics, morphology, and ecology of pigeons and doves (Aves: Columbidae) of the Mascarene Islands, with three new speciesHume, 2011 · Zootaxa · journal article3
Systematics, morphology, and ecological history of the Mascarene starlings (Aves: Sturnidae) with the description of a new genus and species from MauritiusHume, 2014 · Zootaxa · journal article1

Each of the 4 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Alectroenas nitidissimus

Source: Wikipedia/Commons
Credit: Geni
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use: the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Alectroenas nitidissimus was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.

MorphoSource was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Source: Wikipedia, “Mauritius blue pigeon”
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside it Alectroenas through time Formations of the Holocene The world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Scopoli 1786)