Tolima Dove

The Tolimataube ( Leptotila conoveri ) is a pigeon of the genus sound swing pigeons ( Leptotila ). It occurs in Colombia. The specific epithet honors the American Ornithologists Henry Boardman Conover ( 1892-1950 ).

Features

The Tolimataube reached a size 22.5 to 25 cm. The skull is blue-gray or dark gray, throat is white. The back neck is wine colored with a purple sheen. The upper mantle is wine - colored gray with a purple sheen. The rest of the top is dark gray with a purple shimmer. The wings are brownish. Lower breast and belly are yellow-brown, contrasting sharply with trate the wine - red colored upper chest. The under tail-coverts are white, the lower wings are chestnut colored. The tail is slate-colored. The outer tail feathers have white tips, however, are not so wide ( verreauxi Leptotila ) as in the sympatric White-fronted Dove.

Inventory and risk

BirdLife International classifies the Tolimataube as a " high risk " ( endangered ) and estimates the backlog at 600-1700 adult birds. The main hazard is due to habitat loss. Parts of the upper Magdalena River Valley have been converted into agricultural areas used since the 18th century. The terra typica, the higher valleys of the Toche region in the province of Tolima, was still heavily forested while the discovery of Tolimataube in 1942. Since the 1950s, many of these valleys were deforested and used for agricultural land, including coffee plantations, potato and bean cultivation and for grazing animals. Since 1952, the Tolimataube has not been detected in two valleys of the headwaters of the Río Magdalena in Departamento de Huila. The old secondary forest plots are fragmented and natural vegetation has declined in the heights of 1900-3200 m to about 15 percent. The Tolimataube preferred the Quindio wax palm - ( Ceroxylon quindiuense ) as a breeding tree, which is threatened by deforestation.