Columba vitiensis
The metallic pigeon also known as white-throated pigeon, is a medium-sized bird up to 37 cm long, in the family Columbidae.

nrg800 · CC BY 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
- metallic pigeonPBDB
- Sits inside
- ColumbaPBDB
- 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 129 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
7 occurrences of Columba vitiensis on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
7 occurrences- Pleistocene29%
- Holocene71%
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.
Columba vitiensis and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Columba vitiensis and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
105 taxa- Columbidae5 sites
- Ducula goliath4 sites
- Gallirallus lafresnayanus4 sites
- Ninox novaeseelandiae4 sites
- Passeriformes4 sites
- Porphyrio kukwiedei4 sites
- Porphyrio melanotus4 sites
- Sylviornis neocaledoniae4 sites
- Turnix varia novaecaledoniae4 sites
- Tyto alba4 sites
- Zapornia tabuensis4 sites
- Accipiter efficax3 sites
- Accipiter fasciatus3 sites
- Chalcophaps indica3 sites
- Collocalia esculenta3 sites
- Ducula pacifica3 sites
- Gallirallus philippensis3 sites
- Pseudobulweria rostrata3 sites
- Todiramphus sanctus3 sites
- Urodynamis taitensis3 sites
- Accipiter haplochrous2 sites
- Aegotheles savesi2 sites
- Aerodramus spodiopygius2 sites
- Alopecoenas stairi2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Columba vitiensis, 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
4 references- First record of avian extinctions from the Late Pleistocene and Holocene of Timor Leste2
- Faunal extinction and human habitation in New Caledonia: initial results and implications of new research at the Pindai Caves2
- Fossil birds from late Quaternary deposits in New Caledonia2
- Avifauna from the Teouma Lapita site, Efate Island, Vanuatu, including a new genus and species of megapode1
Each of the 7 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. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Columba vitiensis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nrg800
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Columba vitiensis was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- 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 itColumba through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Quoy and Gaimard 1830