The blue pigeons are a
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
, ''Alectroenas'', of birds in the dove and pigeon 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 ...
. They are native to islands in the western
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...
.
Taxonomy and evolution
The genus ''Alectroenas'' was first described in 1840 by the English zoologist
George Robert Gray
George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother ...
with the
Mauritius blue pigeon (''Alectroenas nitidissimus'') as the
type species
In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...
. The genus name combines the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
''alektruōn'', meaning "domestic cock", and ''oinas'', meaning "pigeon".
The ''Alectroenas'' blue pigeons are closely interrelated and occur widely throughout islands in the western
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...
. They are
allopatric and can therefore be regarded as a
superspecies. There are three extant species: the
Madagascar blue pigeon
The Madagascar blue pigeon (''Alectroenas madagascariensis'') is a species of bird in the family Columbidae. The species is closely related to the other two extant species of blue pigeon, the Comoros blue pigeon and the Seychelles blue pigeon. I ...
, the
Comoros blue pigeon, and the Seychelles blue pigeon. The three
Mascarene
The Mascarene Islands (, ) or Mascarenes or Mascarenhas Archipelago is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar consisting of the islands belonging to the Republic of Mauritius as well as the French department of Réunion. Thei ...
islands were home to one species each, which are all extinct; the Mauritius blue pigeon, the
Rodrigues blue pigeon
The Rodrigues blue pigeon (''Alectroenas payandeei'') is an extinct species of blue pigeon which was endemic to Rodrigues. It is known only from the holotype tarsometatarsus collected in 2005, associated with remains of a Rodrigues night heron an ...
, and the Réunion blue pigeon.
The blue pigeons perhaps colonised the Mascarenes, the
Seychelles
Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, ...
or a now submerged
hot spot island by "island hopping" and evolved into a distinct genus there before reaching
Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
.
Their closest
genetic relative is the
cloven-feathered dove, ''Drepanoptila holosericea'', of
New Caledonia, which they separated from 8–9 million years ago.
Their ancestral group appears to be the
fruit doves (''
Ptilinopus
The fruit doves, also known as fruit pigeons, are a genus (''Ptilinopus'') of birds in the pigeon and dove family (Columbidae). These colourful, frugivorous doves are found in forests and woodlands in Southeast Asia and Oceania. It is a large gen ...
'') of
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
and
Oceania
Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million ...
.
[Supplementary information]
(HTML abstract
Free PDFSupplementary information
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The genus contains four extant or recently extinct species:Madagascar blue pigeon
The Madagascar blue pigeon (''Alectroenas madagascariensis'') is a species of bird in the family Columbidae. The species is closely related to the other two extant species of blue pigeon, the Comoros blue pigeon and the Seychelles blue pigeon. I ...
(''Alectroenas madagascariensis'')
* Comoros blue pigeon (''Alectroenas sganzini'')
* Seychelles blue pigeon (''Alectroenas pulcherrimus'')
Two species that became extinct in prehistoric times may have belonged to this genus:
* † Rodrigues blue pigeon
The Rodrigues blue pigeon (''Alectroenas payandeei'') is an extinct species of blue pigeon which was endemic to Rodrigues. It is known only from the holotype tarsometatarsus collected in 2005, associated with remains of a Rodrigues night heron an ...
(''Alectroenas payandeei'')
* † Réunion blue pigeon (''Alectroenas'' sp.)
The Rodrigues pigeon (''Nesoenas rodericana''), now extinct, was once assigned to the genus ''Alectroenas'', but this is now believed to be erroneous. In reality, it probably belongs to an undescribed genus, as the sternum's shape is very dissimilar in its details to that of ''Alectroenas'' or ''Columba'', and indeed to any other living genus of pigeons and doves. It is most similar to that of the ''Gallicolumba
''Gallicolumba'' is a mid-sized genus of ground-dwelling doves (family Columbidae) which occur in rainforests on the Philippines. Local name 'punay' which is a general term for pigeons and doves. They are not closely related to the American groun ...
'' ground doves or to a miniature version of the sternum of a '' Ducula'' imperial pigeon.
Description
Compared to other pigeons, the blue pigeons are medium to large, stocky, and have comparatively long wings and tails. They all have distinct mobile hackles
Hackles are the erectile plumage or hair in the neck area of some birds and mammals.
In birds, the hackle is the group of feathers found along the back and side of the neck. The hackles of some types of chicken, particularly roosters, are long, ...
on the head and neck. The tibiotarsus
The tibiotarsus is the large bone between the femur and the tarsometatarsus in the leg of a bird. It is the fusion of the proximal part of the tarsus with the tibia.
A similar structure also occurred in the Mesozoic Heterodontosauridae. These s ...
is comparatively long and the tarsometatarsus is short.[First page ]
/ref>
References
External links
{{Taxonbar, from=Q620213
*
Taxa named by George Robert Gray
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot