Adult male orange dove, Ptilinopus victor (formerly; Chrysoenas victor), also known as the orange fruit-dove or (more appropriately) as the flame dove, photographed at Taveuni Island, the Fiji archipelago, South Pacific Ocean.
Image: Kevin Sharp [velociraptorize].
Question: This gorgeous Fijian mystery bird is so intensely coloured that it'll make your eyeballs bleed. Okay, maybe not. This lovely and distinctive bird is an endemic of the Fiji archipelago and so many of you have never seen it, but I still think you can (at least) name this bird's taxonomic family.
Response: This is an adult male orange dove, Ptilinopus victor. This bird has such striking colours that I think the alternative common name, the flame dove, is far more appropriate. As the name implies, this bird is a member of the taxonomic family, Columbidae, the pigeons and doves.
The orange dove is distributed throughout the forests of Vanua Levu, Taveuni, Rabi, Kioa, Qamea and Laucala islands in the Fiji archipelago. It is found nowhere else in the world. As its alternate common name implies, this bird subsists mainly on various small fruits and berries, although it does consume caterpillars and insects when it can find them.
You are invited to review all of the daily mystery birds by going to their dedicated graphic index page.
If you have bird images, video or mp3 files that you'd like to share with a large and (mostly) appreciative audience, feel free to email them to me for consideration.
