Tooth-billed Pigeon

The tooth-billed pigeon is a medium-sized, approximately 31 centimetres (12 in) long, dark pigeon with reddish feet and red bare skin around the eye. The underparts, head and neck are greyish with a slight blue-green iridescence, and the tail, wings-coverts and tertials are rufous chestnut, while the remaining remiges are blackish. It has a large, curved, and hooked bright red bill, with tooth-like projections on the lower mandible which let them act as seed dispensers. The sexes are similar in appearance, but the juvenile is duller, with a browner head, and a black bill with pale orange at the base. Behaviourally, it is unusual – perhaps unique among members of Columbiformes in drinking by scooping water up in its bill, in the manner of the great majority of bird species, rather than sucking it up using the tongue as a straw.

The tooth-billed pigeon is confined to undisturbed forests of both the islands of Samoa in the Pacific. It is only found on three islands, Savai'i, Upolu, and Nu'utele. It lives away from sea level on it's main food source, the fruits of 2 species of Dysoxylum, a tree in the mahogany family, though baby chicks are unable to do so.