Scheepmaker's crowned pigeon


Scheepmaker's crowned pigeon is a large, terrestrial pigeon confined to the lowland forests of south eastern New Guinea. It has a bluish-grey plumage with elaborate blue lacy crests, red iris and very deep maroon breast. Both sexes have a similar appearance. It is on average 70 cm long and weighs 2,250 grams.

Taxonomy

This species was first described by the German zoologist Otto Finsch who received a live bird from the dealer C. Scheepmaker in Amsterdam Zoo and named it after him. Scheepmaker's crowned pigeon was previously considered as conspecific with Sclater's crowned pigeon with the English name southern crowned-pigeon. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2018 found that Scheepmaker's crowned pigeon was most closely related to the Victoria crowned pigeon.
Being tame and heavily hunted for its meat and plumes, Scheepmaker's crowned pigeon is evaluated as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It is listed in Appendix II of CITES.