Date of issue : 25 May 2011
In conjunction with WWF, Samoa Post released a set of four stamps and a Miniature sheet on 25 May 2011, featuring fruit doves of Samoa. It is a wonderful set depicting colorful fruit doves. A collectible item for the lovers of Bird theme.
The Many-coloured Fruit-Dove (Ptilinopus perousii), also known in Samoa as Manulua, is a small multi-coloured dove growing up to 250mm in length. The male dove is a pale yellow-white colour with a red-crimson crown and bar across its back. The female is mostly green and grey on the head and breast with a red-crimson crown and undertail area known as coverts. These red-crimson coverts differentiate these doves from those of Fiji and Tonga where the coverts are yellow.
They are primarily found in large mature forest areas in the south-western Pacific - Samoa, Fiji and Tonga - where lowland tropical and sub-tropical forests provide a natural habitat. These birds feed predominantly on fruit and berries found in the high canopy and are partial to figs and also the fruit of the banyan tree. They are very protective of their feeding areas.
It is in the canopy where a small platform of twigs is fashioned into a nest, a single egg is laid and the young nurtured. Reduction in habitat has led to a decreased population, although the decline is not believed to be sufficiently rapid to approach the thresholds for these doves to be considered vulnerable under conservation criteria.
