The Adamawa turtle dove (''Streptopelia hypopyrrha'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

in the pigeon and dove family

Columbidae Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...

. It is also known as the pink-bellied turtle dove. The species is closely related to and has been considered the same species as the dusky turtle dove. The species has a disjunct distribution, being native to Cameroon, Nigeria and southwestern Chad and further west in Gambia, Senegal and Mali. It has also been reported defending a territory in

Togo Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its c ...

, suggesting a population may exist there too.Baptista, L.F., Trail, P.W., Horblit, H.M. & Kirwan, G.M. (2017). Adamawa Turtle-dove (''Streptopelia hypopyrrha''). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). ''Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive''. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from http://www.hbw.com/node/54151 on 3 March 2017). The Adamawa turtle dove measures in length and weighs . It has a silver-grey face and a blue-grey head, a distinctive dark black patch on the shoulder, with a pink belly and breast and brown upperparts edged with grey-brown. Females and juveniles are paler than the males. The Adamawa turtle dove inhabits a range of habitats, from sea level to , particularly forest edge, wooded ravines, gallery forest, suburban gardens and farmland. It is uncertain if the species is migratory, or possibly nomadic, as periods when the species is present in unexpected locations may simply reflect poor ornithological knowledge of the area. Little is known about its behaviour. It feeds on the ground on seeds, sometimes in flocks of up to 60 birds in the non-breeding season, and sometimes with other dove species. Breeding occurs at the end of the dry season. Males display to females through a display flight, with energetic flapping upwards followed by a slow glide down. Both parents build the flimsy nest, and the two eggs are white. The conservation status of the Adamawa turtle dove was assessed by BirdLife International in 2012. It is considered to be a

species of least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q114994 Adamawa turtle dove Birds of West Africa Adamawa turtle dove Taxonomy articles created by Polbot