A New Extinct Species of Giant Pigeon (columbidae: Ducula) from Archeological Deposits on Wallis (uvea) Island, South Pacific

—A. new species of giant pigeon, Ducula david, is described from an archeological excavation on Uvea Island, Wallis group. The new species was contemporaneous with early Lapita culture. Ducula david is related to, but larger than, either D. pacifica or D. galeata. It was sympatric with D. pacifica and provides further evidence that more than one species of Ducula co-existed on small Pacific islands prior to the arrival of man, who was responsible for the extinction of larger species of Ducula throughout almost the entire Pacific. The Wallis Islands, consisting of the large island of Uvea and some 22 much smaller satellites, lie in the South Pacific about 385 km northeast of Fiji and 300 km west of Samoa (13=12' to 13°24'S; 176%' to 176°14'W). In the area between Fiji and Samoa, the Wallis group forms the northern point of a triangle with the Horn Islands (Futuna) to the southwest, and Niuafo'ou, a remote northern outlier of the Tonga group, to the southeast. The island of Uvea is 14 km long by 7.5 km wide, with an area of 95 km and a maximum elevation of 142 m. The preceding is summarized from Stearns (1945) and Aubert de la Rue (1963). Excavations of Polynesian archeological sites on Uvea by Frimigacci, Siorat, and Vienne (see Appendix) have produced a few vertebrate remains, mainly of pig, sea turtles, and birds. Among the latter are bones belonging to an undescribed species of pigeon of the genus Ducula. The material described below is housed in the collections of the Departement des Sciences Humaines, Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique Outre Mer (ORSTOM), Noumea, New Caledonia. Class Aves Order Columbiformes Family Columbidae Genus Ducula Hodgson, 1836 The imperial pigeons {Ducula) can be distinguished from other large pigeons in the Pacific by the widely separated proximal foramina of the tarsometatarsus, the inner foramen being very large and separated from the inner side of the bone only by a thin ridge. Also, the inner cotyla is hooked anteriorly. Ducula david, new species Fig. 1 Holotype. — Right tarsometatarsus (MU 021 A/83 3335), lacking the hypotarsus and the distal end 1 cm below the facet for metatarsal I, internal cotyla damaged. Type locality.— Utuleve (site WF-U-MU 21A of Frimigacci et al., see Appendix), west side of the island of Uvea, Wallis group, South Pacific. Horizon and age. —Late Holocene archeological deposits, Bed VP, 0.80-0.85 m be770 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON Fig. 1. Tarsometatarsi of Ducula in posterior (top row) and anterior (bottom row) views. A, D. galeata; B, D. david, new species, holotype; C, D. pacifica; D, D. goliath. 1.5 x. low surface, in association with Lapita ceramics of the Utuleve II type (see Appendix; Fig. 2). The radiocarbon age of the bed below that yielding the holotype is 2350-2550 YBP (Frimigacci, pers. comm.). Lapita culture appeared in Samoa and Tonga about 2500 to 3000 YBP and pottery manufacture is thought to have ceased there early in the Christian era (Green 1979, Davidson 1979). The bones of D. david were probably deposited between about 2000 and 2500 YBP (see Appendix). Parades.—Fragment of a left coracoid (MU 021 A/83 4252) from the same locality as the holotype but from a lower level. Anterior portion of a left scapula (UMU 46 A Al A2/83 1352) from the Malama Tagata site (see Appendix, Table 2). Measurements of types.—See Table 1. Etymology. — In a genus with a species VOLUME 100, NUMBER 4 771 0 SOUTH 100 NORTH 200 0 10