The tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris), also known as the manumea, is a large pigeon found only in Samoa. It is the only living species of genus Didunculus. A related extinct species, the Tongan tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus placopedetes), is only known from subfossil remains in several archeological sites in Tonga. The tooth-billed pigeon is the national bird of Samoa and featured on the 20 tālā bills and the 50 sene pieces of the 2008/2011 series. Native only to Samoa's primary rainforest, it is considered to be endangered, with only a few hundred individuals thought to remain in existence.
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👉 Tooth-billed pigeon in the context of Nuʻulua
Nuʻulua is an island in Samoa (not to be confused with the landmass also called Nuʻulua that lies 200 meters west of Ofu in American Samoa). It is located in the Aleipata Islands, somewhat more than 1.3 km from the eastern end of Upolu (a much larger island that is also part of Samoa).
Nuʻulua has a land area of 25 hectares. It is a habitat for locally and regionally endemic birds, including the endangered tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris), also known as the Samoan pigeon, and also for an endemic bat (Pteropus samoensis).
In this Dossier
- ⭐ Core Definition: Tooth-billed pigeon
- 👉 Tooth-billed pigeon in the context of Nuʻulua
- Tooth-billed pigeon in the context of Raphina
Tooth-billed pigeon in the context of Raphina
The Raphina are a clade of extinct flightless birds formerly called didines or didine birds. They inhabited the Mascarene Islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues, but became extinct through hunting by humans and predation by introduced non-native mammals following human colonisation in the 17th century. Historically, many different groups have been named for both the dodo and the Rodrigues solitaire, not all grouping them together. Most recently, it is considered that the two birds can be classified in Columbidae, often under the subfamily Raphinae. The first person to suggest a close affinity to the doves was Johannes Theodor Reinhardt, whose opinions were then supported by Hugh Edwin Strickland and Alexander Gordon Melville.
Recent extractions of DNA from the dodo and Rodrigues solitaire, as well as 37 species of doves, has found where in Columbidae the raphines should be placed. Raphines are not the most primitive columbid, instead they are grouped with the Nicobar pigeon as their closest relative, with other closely related birds being the crowned pigeons and tooth-billed pigeon. A third raphine, Raphus solitarius, is now considered to be an ibis in the genus Threskiornis.
View the full Wikipedia page for Raphina