In May 1953, Filipino ornithologist D. S. Rabor collected a single female fruit dove on the forested slopes of an active volcano on the Philippine island of Negros. The small apple-green bird, which had yellow edgings on its wings and prominent circles of bare skin around its eyes, was unlike any other known pigeon species. In 1954, Rabor and Yale professor Dillon Ripley described the unique specimen as Ptilinopus arcanus, a name inspired by the Latin word for "secret."