Claret-breasted fruit dove

In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the claret-breasted fruit dove in his six volume Ornithologie based on a specimen collected on Ambon Island, one of the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. He used the French name La tourterelle verte d'Amboine and the Latin Turtur viridis amboinensis.[3] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.[4] When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson.[4] One of these was the claret-breasted fruit dove which he placed with all the other pigeons in the genus Columba. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Columba viridis and cited Brisson's work.[5] The specific name viridis is the Latin word for "green".[6] This fruit dove is now placed in the genus Ptilinopus that was introduced in 1825 by the English naturalist William John Swainson.[7][8]

Six subspecies are recognised:[8]

• P. v. viridis (Linnaeus, 1766) – south Maluku Islands
• P. v. pectoralis (Wagler, 1829) – Raja Ampat Islands, Bird's Head Peninsula (northwest New Guinea)
• P. v. geelvinkianus Schlegel, 1871 – Cenderawasih Bay Islands
• P. v. salvadorii Rothschild, 1892 – north New Guinea, Yapen Island (off northwest New Guinea)
• P. v. vicinus Hartert, 1895 – Trobriand Islands, D'Entrecasteaux Islands (off east New Guinea)
• P. v. lewisii Ramsay, EP, 1882 – Manus Island, Lihir Island and Nissan Island to west Solomon Islands

The claret-breasted fruit dove is 20–21 cm (7.9–8.3 in) in length. The plumage is mainly green apart from a well-defined patch of dark red-brown feathers on the throat and upper breast. The face and forecrown are bluish grey and shoulder has a bluish grey patch.[9]

• Claret-breasted fruit dove Xeno-canto: audio recordings of the claret-breasted fruit dove