Tooth-billed Pigeon

SCI Name:  Didunculus strigirostris
Protonym:  Gnathodon strigirostris Ann.Mag.Nat.Hist.(1), 16 p.175 pl.9
Taxonomy:  Columbiformes / Columbidae / Didunculus
Taxonomy Code:  tobpig1
Type Locality:  Australia ? error = Samoa.
Author:  Jardine
Publish Year:  1845
IUCN Status:  Critically Endangered

DEFINITIONS

DIDUNCULUS
(Columbidae; † Tooth-billed Pigeon D. strigirostris) Dim. < genus Didus Linnaeus, 1766, dodo; "Genus GNATHODON, Jard.  ...   Type G. strigirostris.  ...  From a careful consideration of the general characters, we are inclined then to place this singular bird with the Peneloponinæ or Megapodinæ, probably the latter.  We are aware of no existing description, though there is one allusion made to a bird which may eventually turn out to be this.  In Mr. Strickland's Report on the Recent Progress and Present State of Ornithology, read before the British Association at York, it is stated, "The recent American voyage of discovery will extend our knowledge of Polynesian zoology, and its researches will be made known by Mr. Titian Peale, who is said to have discovered among other rarities a new bird allied to the dodo, which he proposes to name Didunculus;" and we believe "strigirostris" has been applied specifically.  In that part of these voyages aleady published there is no zoology given, so that we cannot now ascertain the value of this discovery, and from the specimen before us possessing no characters in common with a struthious bird, we have ventured to characterize it as a new generic form." (Jardine 1845);  “Genus DIDUNCULUS.— (PEALE.)  Rostrum magnum, compressum, aduncum; culmine quasi in tertiam circuli partem curvato; superioris mandibulæ margine undulato, in medio contracto, valde acuto: mandibula inferiori magna quæ clausa extra superiorem jacet, bidenticulata, apice truncata, marginibus acutis, gonyde prominente et rotundata  ...  our Didunculus, or little Dodo” (Peale 1848); "Didunculus Peale, U. S. Expl. Exped., 8, 1848, p. 208. Type, by monotypy, Didunculus strigirostris Peale = Gnathodon strigirostris Jardine." (Peters, 1937, III, p. 141); "Didunculus Jardine ex Peale MS, 1845, Annals Mag. Nat. History, XVI (3), p. 176.  Type, by monotypy, Didunculus strigirostris.   Gnathodon Jardine, 1845, is preoccupied by Gnathodon Streubel, 1842." (JAJ 2020) (see Bruce and Bahr, 2020, Sherbornia, 6 (1), pp. 1-42).  Fortunately, the diminutive substantive name ‘Dodlet’ suggested by Owen has not been generally adopted.
Synon. Gnathodon, Pleiodus.

strigirostris
L. strix, strigis  owl; -rostris  -billed  < rostrum  beak; “The maxilla, strigine-like, hooked and sharp-pointed” (Jardine 1845) (Didunculus).