Negros Fruit-Dove Ptilinopus arcanus Scientific name definitions

18 cm. Only female known. A vivid rather dark green fruit-dove with ashy grey forehead; broad yellow fringes to the greater coverts and tertials produce a narrow but conspicuous bar on folded wing; throat whitish; yellow undertail-coverts; in the dried specimen extensive bare orbital skin yellowish; bill blackish; legs purplish red.

Known only from Mt Canlaon, in NC Negros (C Philippines).

The single specimen was collected in a large fruiting tree in a clearing at an altitude recorded as 1097 m or 1128 m (2 Collar, N.J. and Lambert, F.R. (2013). The elusive Negros Fruit-dove Ptilinopus arcanus sixty years on. BirdingASIA. 19: 38-41. Close ).

Voice unknown.

CRITICALLY ENDANGERED. Restricted-range species: present in Negros and Panay EBA. Known only from a single specimen collected in 1953, one of a pair shot out of a large fruiting tree on the edge of a camp clearing on Mt Canlaon (3 Ripley, S.D. and Rabor, D.S. (1955). A new fruit pigeon from the Philippines. Postilla. 21: 1-2. Close ). Fieldwork at the type locality in 1991 failed to find the bird (4 Brooks, T. M., T. D. Evans, G. C. L. Dutson, G. Q. A. Anderson, D. C. Asane, R. J. Timmins, and A. G. Toledo (1992). The conservation status of the birds of Negros, Philippines. Bird Conservation International 2(4):273–302. Close ), as did a survey of Mt Canalaon in 1994 and a targeted search in 2010 (2 Collar, N.J. and Lambert, F.R. (2013). The elusive Negros Fruit-dove Ptilinopus arcanus sixty years on. BirdingASIA. 19: 38-41. Close ). Local hunters have, however, described doves which may be this species having been shot in 1985 and 2008 (2 Collar, N.J. and Lambert, F.R. (2013). The elusive Negros Fruit-dove Ptilinopus arcanus sixty years on. BirdingASIA. 19: 38-41. Close ). Although suitable habitat remains above 750 m, most forest below that elevation has been cleared (2 Collar, N.J. and Lambert, F.R. (2013). The elusive Negros Fruit-dove Ptilinopus arcanus sixty years on. BirdingASIA. 19: 38-41. Close ) and habitat destruction continues. Hunting pressure is severe. If this species persists any remaining population is likely to be tiny BirdLife International (2015) Species factsheet: Ptilinopus arcanus. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 21/04/2015. . Additional exhaustive surveys are urgently required.