Kingdom Animalia Class Aves Family Columbidae Rank Species | Phylum Chordata Order Columbiformes Genus Geotrygon | |
 | ||
Similar Puerto Rican barn owl, Antillean cave rail, Grey‑fronted quail‑dove, Key West quail‑dove, Ruddy quail‑dove | ||
The Puerto Rican quail-dove (Geotrygon larva) is an extinct species of dove from the genus of quail-doves (Geotrygon). It is only known by subfossil material from the Holocene.
Remains of the Puerto Rican quail-dove were unearthed in the caves Cueva Clara and Cueva Catedral near Morovis, in the cave Cueva Toraño at Utuado and in a kitchen midden near Mayagüez on Puerto Rico. The holotype, a tarsometatarsus, was discovered in July 1916 by zoologist Harold Elmer Anthony in the cave Cueva Clara.
According to Alexander Wetmore who described this species it was related to the grey-fronted quail-dove (Geotrygon caniceps) which occurs on Cuba and on the Dominican Republic. However, the tarsometatarsus of the Puerto Rican quail-dove is longer than in the grey-fronted quail-dove. Compared with the ruddy quail-dove (Geotrygon montana), which occurs on Puerto Rico too, the tarsometatarsi are more slender.
The amount of the unearthed material led to the assumption that the Puerto Rican quail-dove might have been a common bird before the arrival of the first settlers. Probably it became a victim of the extensive deforestations.