Many-colored fruit dove

Appearance

It is a small dove, 23 cm in length. Adults weigh in at 90 g. The male is mostly pale yellow-white with a red crown and red bar across the back. The female is mostly green, darker on the back and greyer on the head and breast. Her crown is red while the undertail-coverts are red in Samoan birds and yellow in birds from Fiji and Tonga.

Male Ptilinopus perousii perousii is pale on the bottom and yellow on top. There is also a crimson band and corona. The female is said to resemble the purple-capped fruit dove; however, there is no yellow band. They have grey on the bottom while green on top. It only has a crimson corona unlike the male.

Distribution

Manuma are found across many islands and archipelagos across polynesia with a range of 660,000 sq. km. They are most often found in Fiji and Tonga.

Behavior

Manuma are often found in small flocks. In each flock there are normally more males than females.

Habitat

They can be found in lowland subtropical and tropical broadleaf forests. In these forests, they are found in the canopies. They can also be found in urban areas. The manuma's fossil range is from 0.12 million years ago to today, exclusively in the quaternary.

Food

The many-colored fruit dove is a frugivore. It forages the canopies of trees in search of figs. On Samoa and American Samoa it is mostly the banyan. This strict diet keeps the two fig species in check; however, any decline in the amount of figs may be a disaster for the many-colored fruit dove. However, on Fiji and Tonga, they are known to eat fruits of ylang ylang, bishop wood, and "māgele".