Food of Fruit-Pigeons in New Guinea

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Abstract
Frith, H. J., F. H. J. Crome and T. O. W Olfe. 1976. Food of fruit-pigeons in New Guinea. Emu 76: 49–58. The contents of the crops of 490 individuals of nine species of Ptilinopus and of sixty-nine individuals of four species of Ducula, collected near Port Moresby, New Guinea, have been analysed. The pigeons had eaten 186 different fruits representing thirty-eight families of trees, palms and vines. The most important sources of food to the group were figs Ficus (Moraceae). These had been eaten by eleven of the thirteen species and provided thirty-eight per cent of the food eaten. The palms, Arecaceae, and the laurels, Lauraceae, had also been eaten by eleven species but contributed respectively only nine per cent and eight per cent to the volume of food. Most of the samples were too small to allow interspecific comparisons of diet but in P. magnificus, P. iozonus and P. perlatus there was little overlap in preferences for food.

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