Christmas imperial pigeon (Ducula whartoni) - PigeonSubstance

Other than the Christmas Island flying fox, the Christmas imperial pigeon is the only fruit-eating (frugivorous) animal on the island, and the pigeon feeds and nests in the dense canopy. It mainly inhabits the tropical inland plateau, and widespread non-native Jamaican cherry forests. It was previously thought to be in danger of extinction due to habitat loss and invasive species (specifically the yellow crazy ant), but it is now considered to be rather common, with a breeding population of about 5,000.

The Christmas imperial pigeon was first described by English ornithologist Richard Bowdler Sharpe in 1887 based on an adult male specimen collected by Captain John Maclear of HMS Challenger. The species name whartoni honours British admiral Sir William Wharton. It is unclear how Sharpe and Wharton are affiliated, but Wharton was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in the previous year, possibly somehow affecting Sharpe's thinking. Sharpe first classified it into the now-defunct genus Carpophaga. In 1933, English zoologist Frederick Nutter Chasen considered the Christmas imperial pigeon to be a subspecies of pink-headed imperial pigeon as D. rosacea whartoni. In 1937, American ornithologist James L. Peters synonymised Carpophaga with Drucula, and disagreed with Chasen, classifying the Christmas imperial pigeon as a distinct species, D. whartoni.

The Christmas imperial pigeon is a species of imperial pigeon (Ducula), which is widely spread out across Oceania, however it is the only imperial pigeon in the Indian Ocean. Likewise, its affinities are unclear. However, the Christmas imperial pigeon could be placed into the D. aenea species complex along with the green (nominate), island, grey, and pink-headed imperial pigeons. The latter is sometimes considered synonymous with the Christmas imperial pigeon.

There's a lot more to read at wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_imperial_pigeon