Ducula myristicivora
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~70% in a week >90%
The spice imperial pigeon (Ducula myristicivora) is a species of bird in the family Columbidae. It is endemic to Indonesia, where it occurs in the eastern Moluccas and the Raja Ampat Islands. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical mangrove forests. It eats, and is an important disperser of seeds for, fleshy fruits.
The spice imperial pigeon was formally described in 1786 by the Austrian naturalist Giovanni Antonio Scopoli and given the binomial name Columba myristicivora. The specific epithet myristicivora combines the botanical genus name Myristica that contains the nutmeg (from the Ancient Greek muristikos meaning "fragrant"), with the Latin -vorus meaning "eating". The type locality is New Guinea. This species is now placed in the genus Ducula that was introduced by the English naturalist Brian Houghton Hodgson in 1836.
The Geelvink imperial pigeon (D. geelvinkiana) of the Schouten (or Geelvink) Islands was formerly considered conspecific, but was recognized as a distinct species by the IOC in 2021. Wikipedia →
Call0:18
Indonesia · 2019
© Marc Anderson · XC530356 · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Call0:42
Indonesia · 2017
© Ross Gallardy · XC409490 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Recording0:02
Indonesia · 2023
© John D Reynolds · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raja Ampat | 🇮🇩 Indonesia |
More parks will be added in future updates.
Likely
About 40% of wildlife watchers report a Spice Imperial-Pigeon sighting in Raja Ampat on a given day, based on 585 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 27th most-seen of the 200 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 70%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
October to December
In those months about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Spice Imperial-Pigeon in Raja Ampat on a given day, against about 20% in February, April and July, the lowest months.
Between 3 and 6 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Spice Imperial-Pigeon sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Raja Ampat, in our data
Raja Ampat is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Spice Imperial-Pigeon sightings: about 40% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same genus: Ducula
The closest relatives of the Spice Imperial-Pigeon that you can see in Raja Ampat (genus Ducula, Imperial Pigeons) are Pinon Imperial-Pigeon (about 60%), Pied Imperial Pigeon (about 30%) and Purple-tailed Imperial-Pigeon (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Spice Imperial-Pigeon is recorded against all the birds logged in Raja Ampat (585 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
