Ptilinopus superbus

Bishop, K. David, 2023, The avifauna of Biak Island, Papua, Indonesia with comments on status, conservation, natural history and taxonomy, Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 143 (1), pp. 3-62 : 19

*SUPERB FRUIT DOVE Ptilinopus superbus

Range P. s. superbus Biak, Numfor, Yapen.

Status Resident. First recorded on Biak in

December 1962 ( King 1979). Thereafter few

records until the early 1990s when greater

familiarity with the species’ vocalisations

improved visitors’ ability to detect it. We

recorded several on most visits. That this

species has only recently been found on

Biak and was not taken by any collectors

suggests it may be a latter-day colonist, as

this dove was obtained by early collectors

such as A. A. Bruijn and O. Beccari on

Numfor and Yapen ( Salvadori 1880 ‒82) and

repeatedly recorded thereafter, especially

on Yapen ( Diamond & Bishop 2020). The

bird in Fig. 4 has a grey, rather than

purplish, breast thereby confirming that the

Biak population belongs with the nominate

subspecies as expected.