Philippine Cuckoo-Dove
Also known as: Macropygia tenuirostris (scientific name) · Rusty cuckoo-dove (descriptive English name)
Definition
Philippine cuckoo-dove (Macropygia tenuirostris) is a long-tailed dove of the family Columbidae found in the Philippines and Taiwan. Slender and rufous-brown, it inhabits forest and wooded country where it forages for fruit among the canopy and flies fast and direct between feeding trees. The species is currently rated Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, though island forest loss keeps populations under watch. (Wikipedia)
Identities
| Source Type | Identity |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | Philippine cuckoo-dove |
| Wikidata | Q1260427 |
| DBpedia | N/A |
| ProductOntology | N/A |
| Wiktionary | N/A |
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) | N/A |
| MeSH | N/A |
| NCBI Taxonomy | Macropygia tenuirostris |
| AGROVOC | N/A |
| Google Scholar | Macropygia tenuirostris Philippine cuckoo-dove distribution ecology island forests |
| ConceptNet | dove |
| OpenCyc | N/A |
Also Known As
- Macropygia tenuirostris (scientific name)
- Rusty cuckoo-dove (descriptive English name)
Examples and Analogies
- The Dove Built Like a Rocket: Compared with the plump ground doves of city plazas, the cuckoo-dove is all tail and wingtip — a bird whose silhouette suggests a falcon’s speed in a fruit-eater’s body.
- Forest Telegram: Its low, cooing whoo-up, whoo-up drifting through morning forest is often the first clue of a flock passing overhead before any bird is seen.
Usage Scenarios
1. Forest Bird Surveys
Biologists conducting point counts in Luzon and Mindanao forests use the species’ distinctive calls to index dove abundance across habitat types.
2. Frugivore Ecology Studies
Researchers tracking seed dispersal note the species among canopy frugivores that move figs and laurel fruits between forest fragments.
Strategies
- Maintain fig-rich forest patches in production landscapes to sustain resident frugivore flocks, this species included.
- Use its calls in citizen-science bird apps to sharpen distribution maps across lesser-surveyed Philippine islands.
Security and Safety Measures
- Include the species in hunting-awareness campaigns in rural areas, as large doves are taken opportunistically wherever firearms are uncontrolled.
- Follow standard biosecurity measures when handling any wild bird for research, as doves can carry avian pathogens.
Historical Context
Cuckoo-doves of the Macropygia tenuirostris group were described from nineteenth-century Philippine collections, and the complex has since been repeatedly reassessed as ornithologists weighed plumage and voice differences across island populations, with related forms in Indonesia and Australasia variously split. In the Philippine islands themselves the bird remains a characteristic sound of mature forest, easy to hear and quick to dash away, a common but understudied member of the archipelago’s rich columbid fauna. (Wikipedia)
Challenges and Controversies
Taxonomic Instability
Boundaries between the Philippine forms and related island populations have shifted across decades of splits and lumps, complicating range and status estimates.
Hunting Pressure
Its size and fast flight make it a target species in subsistence hunting wherever forest patrols are thin.