In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the green imperial pigeon in his six volume Ornithologie.

[2] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.

[3] When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson.

This is a forest species which is a widespread resident breeding bird in tropical southern Asia from Nepal[17][18] and India east to Indonesia.

Its flight is fast and direct, with the regular beats and an occasional sharp flick of the wings which are characteristic of pigeons in general.