Bonin Wood-pigeon Columba versicolor. Original artwork from A Gap in Nature.

2000.
Watercolour and gouache on Arches paper, 690 x 410mm, framed, signed and dated by artist.

Last Record: 15 September 1889. Distribution: Peel and Nakondo-shima, Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands, Japan.

The Bonin wood-pigeon is recorded from just two islands in the Ogasawara Group-Peel Island, where it was discovered by naturalists travelling with Captain Beechey on the Blossom in 1827, and Nakondo-shima, where the last specimen was taken in 1889. Friedrich von Kittlitz also collected it on Peel in 1828. The last animal seen was a male obtained by a Mr Holst, who was collecting for the British ornithologist Henry Seebohm. It was a large and beautiful pigeon, and may have always been rather uncommon.
Almost nothing is known of its natural history, although Errol Fuller, a researcher on obscure and extinct birds, considers that it fed on fruits, seeds and buds. Three specimens exist, in museums in Russia, Germany and Britain.