comes from the Ancient Greek word mikros "small", and goura, a New Guinean aboriginal name for the similarly-crested crowned pigeons of the genus Goura. Rothschild named the species after Meek, giving the bird the specific name meeki. Though its relationships are unclear, the Choiseul pigeon is believed to have been closest to the thick-billed ground pigeon (Trugon terrestris) from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, which has similar plumage. It has been suggested that the Choiseul pigeon was a link between the thick-billed ground pigeon and the crowned pigeons; however, other sources argue that it may not have been closely related to the crowned pigeons as its crest was quite different. Based on behavioural and morphological evidence, Jolyon C. Parish proposed that the Choiseul pigeon should be placed in the Gourinae subfamily along with the Goura pigeons, the dodo, the Rodrigues solitaire, and others. The Choiseul pigeon had no known subspecies. Today, five skins and a partial skeleton are kept in the American Museum of Natural History, while a single skin and the egg are kept at the Natural History Museum at Tring. The Choiseul pigeon is also known as the Solomon crowned pigeon, Solomon Islands pigeon, Solomons crested pigeon, Solomon Islands crested pigeon, Choiseul crested pigeon, crested Choiseul pigeon, Meek's pigeon, Meek's ground pigeon, and dwarf goura. The indigenous peoples of Choiseul called the species either "kumku-peka" or "kukuru-ni-lua", which translates literally as "pigeon-belong-ground". Description The Choiseul pigeon was about long. The wing of the male was , the tail , the culmen , and the tarsus was . The wing of the female was , the tail , the culmen , and the tarsus was . Adult Choiseul pigeons of both sexes were blue-grey overall with a buffy orange belly. The pigeon had a distinctive long, rounded crest that had a hairy texture. This crest, like the crown, was slaty-blue and emerged from the bird's hindcrown. Though many artists have speculated, it is unknown how the pigeon held its crest in life as Meek's notes did not cover this subject. John Gerrard Keulemans (who produced the illustration accompanying Rothschild's original description), depicted the crest as being flat based on Meek's specimens; other artists have presented it as spread and scraggly like that of the crowned pigeons. It has been suggested that the crests of the museum specimens were flattened during preparation. On the bird's forehead was a naked and