ALLOCOLUMBIFORMES

Spexplorers have found beautiful, toothless, fruit- and seed-eating birds all over the planet (except in cold regions and very remote islands; they are still somewhat uncommon in South America). They were considered "doves", "sandgrouse" or "p-Columbiformes". Investigations of the skeleton (which sports a few confusing characters that are otherwise found only in Enantiornithes) and genetic material soon showed that they weren't pigeons, or Neornithes at all. They are now thought to include †Apsaravis, an interesting bird from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia.

Otherworld pigeons tend to breed fast, grow fast, and fly fast, with the exception of some flightless species on small, remote islands.

[pic] The rainforests of Fiji are home to some of the most beautiful birds of Spec. Among these ranges the sunrise fruit dove (Fructivora aumalae), which is a beautiful pale orange in colour.

Spec fruit doves (Fructivoridae) are found in all tropical rainforests from India eastwards.

[pic] The Mongolian sandgrouse, Diarhaptes euparadoxus, is the best known of otherworld sandgrouse (Diarhaptidae). This is related to the fact that it lives and breeds in large colonies in the dry steppes of central Asia. Like in all Spec sandgrouse, its feet are fully feathered, probably as an adaptation to the hot soil during the day as well as the cold nights.

[pic] Each autumn, the Great Black Swamp is targeted by a dark cloud of chestnut doves (Allocolumba amicacastanearum). These dove-sized light brown birds (with a middle brown stripe behind the cheeks) eat all sorts of hard tree fruits, such as acorns and beechnuts, but preferably chestnuts. During the nut-glut, they try to fill themselves up with swamp chestnuts before the latter fall to the ground. This way they largely stay out of the reach of not-coons, but not those of bobs and pentagon chickenhawks, from which they can only escape by means of their flight skills and their vast numbers.

To maximize their gains from the nut-glut, chestnut doves breed rather late in summer, largely in and around the Great Black Swamp.

David Marjanović

                  ,=†Apsaravis ukhaana
Allocolumbiformes=|
                  | ,=Diarhaptidae=Diarhaptes euparadoxus (Mongolian sandgrouse)
                  `=|
                    |                 ,=Allocolumbidae=Allocolumba amicacastanearum (Chestnut dove)
                    `=Allocolumboidea=|
                                      `=Fructivoridae=Fructivora aumalae (Sunrise fruit dove)

[back]