NATURAL HISTORY · CATALOGUE RECORD
Beautiful Fruit Dove
Ptilinopus pulchellus (Temminck, 1835)
Source-backed taxonomic record
Accepted species in Catalogue of Life’s 11 September 2026 base release. This preserves the source classification and available supporting data; it is not a completed species monograph.
Beautiful Fruit-dove (also known as the Rose-fronted Pigeon and Crimson-capped Fruit-dove) at Artis Zoo, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Arjan Haverkamp · CC BY 2.0 · Image sourceProvider-generated thumbnail requested at 800 pixels; no local editing Local WebP display rendition; resized without cropping.
Open encyclopedia reference
The beautiful fruit dove (Ptilinopus pulchellus), also known as the rose-fronted pigeon or crimson-capped fruit dove, is a small, approximately 19 cm (7+1⁄2 in) long, mainly green fruit dove. It has a red crown, whitish throat, a greenish-yellow bill and purplish-red feet. It has a blue-grey breast and yellowish orange belly, with a reddish purple patch in between. Both sexes are similar. The beautiful fruit dove is distributed in rainforests of New Guinea and the islands of Batanta, Waigeo, Salawati and Misool in West Papua, Indonesia, primarily in flat terrain. The female usually lays a single white egg. Its diet consists mainly of various fruits from trees, palms and vines. In the Port Moresby area, birds were found to eat a mixed diet in May. Large Tristiropsis canarioides fruit were taken when available, but the species gets displaced from fruiting trees by larger pigeons such as the collared imperial pigeon (Ducula mullerii). Small Endiandra sp. fruit were very often eaten, but made up only a small quantity of food volume.
Wikipedia contributors, Beautiful fruit dove; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T08:46:54.799358+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.
Identity & source status
- Scientific name
- Ptilinopus pulchellus (Temminck, 1835)
- Name authority
- (Temminck, 1835)
- Common name
- Beautiful Fruit Dove
- Rank
- species
- Accepted status
- accepted
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Columbiformes
- Family
- Columbidae
- Genus
- Ptilinopus
- Extinction status
- Recorded extant
Classification family tree
Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.
- domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
- kingdomAnimalia
- phylumChordata
- subphylumVertebrata
- infraphylumGnathostomata
- parvphylumOsteichthyes
- megaclassTetrapoda
- classAves
- orderColumbiformes
- familyColumbidae
- subfamilyRaphinae
- genusPtilinopus Swainson, 1825
- speciesPtilinopus pulchellus (Temminck, 1835)
Close classified relatives
These entries share the source’s genus, Ptilinopus. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.
| Species | Classification | Source status |
|---|---|---|
| Orange-fronted Fruit DovePtilinopus aurantiifrons G. R. Gray, 1858 | ColumbidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Makatea Fruit DovePtilinopus chalcurus G. R. Gray, 1860 | ColumbidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Coroneted Fruit DovePtilinopus coronulatus G. R. Gray, 1858 | ColumbidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Red-naped Fruit DovePtilinopus dohertyi Rothschild, 1896 | ColumbidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| White-headed Fruit DovePtilinopus eugeniae (Gould, 1856) | ColumbidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Red-eared Fruit DovePtilinopus fischeri Brüggemann, 1876 | ColumbidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Carunculated Fruit DovePtilinopus granulifrons Hartert, 1898 | ColumbidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Red-bellied Fruit DovePtilinopus greyi Bonaparte, 1857 | ColumbidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Rapa Fruit DovePtilinopus huttoni Finsch, 1874 | ColumbidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Grey-headed Fruit DovePtilinopus hyogastrus (Temminck, 1824) | ColumbidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Orange-bellied Fruit DovePtilinopus iozonus G. R. Gray, 1858 | ColumbidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Jambu Fruit DovePtilinopus jambu (J. F. Gmelin, 1789) | ColumbidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
Names & synonyms
Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.
| Recorded name | Source status |
|---|---|
| Ptilinopus pulchellus decorus Madarász, 1910 Madarász, 1910 | synonym |
| Ptilinopus pulchellus pulchellus (Temminck, 1835) (Temminck, 1835) | synonym |
Documented distribution
Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.
Source literature & publication evidence
References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.
- https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=177339 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references
Origins, evidence & remaining research
Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.
Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record.
Dataset citation & attribution
This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11
Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.
Stable key: col:4Q7P7. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.