''Streptopelia'' is a genus of birds 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 ...

. These are mainly slim, small to medium-sized species. The upperparts tend to be pale brown and the underparts are often a shade of pink. Many have a characteristic black-and-white patch on the neck and monotonous cooing songs. The heartland of this genus is Africa, but several species occur in tropical

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;; ...

. As a group, this genus is highly successful; many species are abundant in a range of habitats in the tropics and two now have a much more extensive distribution. The Eurasian collared dove (''Streptopelia decaocto'') naturally expanded out of its original range of the warmer temperate regions from southeastern Europe to Japan to colonise the rest of Europe, reaching as far west as Great Britain by 1960 and Ireland soon after. It has also been introduced into the U.S. and, as of 1999, it had been reported from 22 states and was still spreading rapidly.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Streptopelia'' was introduced in 1855 by the French ornithologist

Charles Lucien Bonaparte Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, 2nd Prince of Canino and Musignano (24 May 1803 – 29 July 1857), was a French naturalist and ornithologist. Lucien and his wife had twelve children, including Cardinal Lucien Bonaparte. Life and career ...

. The name is from 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 pe ...

στρεπτός (''streptós'') – literal meaning "twisted" but, by extension, "wearing a

torc A torc, also spelled torq or torque, is a large rigid or stiff neck ring in metal, made either as a single piece or from strands twisted together. The great majority are open at the front, although some had hook and ring closures and a few had ...

" (i.e., twisted metal collar) – and πέλεια (''péleia'') meaning "wild dove". Also in 1855, 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 ...

designated 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 specim ...

as ''Streptopelia risoria'', the Barbary dove. Although ''Streptopelia risoria'' has been confirmed as a valid name by the

International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is an organization dedicated to "achieving stability and sense in the scientific naming of animals". Founded in 1895, it currently comprises 26 commissioners from 20 countries. Orga ...

, the Barbary dove may be a domesticated form of the African collared dove (''Streptopelia roseogrisea''). A

DNA sequence DNA sequencing is the process of determining the nucleic acid sequence – the order of nucleotides in DNA. It includes any method or technology that is used to determine the order of the four bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. T ...

analysis has concluded that the genus consists of three distinct lineages. One contains the laughing dove and the

spotted dove The spotted dove (''Spilopelia chinensis'') is a small and somewhat long-tailed pigeon that is a common resident breeding bird across its native range on the Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia. The species has been introduced to many part ...

, which have long been recognized as having distinct morphology and behavior. The second group contains most of the other species, except for the

Malagasy turtle dove The Malagasy turtle dove (''Nesoenas picturatus'') is a bird species in the pigeon and dove family, Columbidae. It is found in Mauritian-Indian Ocean Territory, the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mayotte, Réunion, and the Seychelles. ...

and the

pink pigeon The pink pigeon (''Nesoenas mayeri'') is a species of pigeon in the family Columbidae endemic to Mauritius. The pink pigeon nearly became extinct in the 1970s and the 1990s and is still very rare. It is the only Mascarene pigeon that has not beco ...

, which appear to be the surviving species of an endemic

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 Afric ...

/ Mascarenes radiation and have at times been placed in other genera. The two-species lineages appear to be each other's closest relatives and cannot be firmly assigned to either ''Columba'' or ''Streptopelia'' (although overall they seem to be close to the latter). Thus, it might be best to split the two minor lineages off as distinct genera, namely ''

Spilopelia ''Spilopelia'' is a genus of doves that are closely related to '' Streptopelia'', yet distinguished from them by differences in morphology and behavior. Some authors have argued that ''Stigmatopelia'' is the valid name as it appears in an earlier ...

'' for the first (which, although not having priority over ''Stigmatopelia'', which occurs earlier on the page, is chosen on the first reviser principle) and ''

Nesoenas ''Nesoenas'' is a bird genus in the pigeon and dove family, Columbidae. It is often included with the typical turtle-doves in ''Streptopelia'' or the typical pigeons (''Columba''). By those who accepted it, it was usually treated as monotypic, ...

'' for the second.

Species

Streptopelia chinensis -Kuala Lumpur Bird Park-8a

The genus contains 15 species: *

European turtle dove The European turtle dove (''Streptopelia turtur'') is a member of the bird family Columbidae, the doves and pigeons. It breeds over a wide area of the south western Palearctic including north Africa but migrates to northern sub-Saharan Africa ...

''Streptopelia turtur'' * Dusky turtle dove, ''Streptopelia lugens'' *

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

, ''Streptopelia hypopyrrha'' *

Oriental turtle dove The Oriental turtle dove or rufous turtle dove (''Streptopelia orientalis'') is a member of the bird family Columbidae. The species has a wide native distribution range from Europe, east across Asia to Japan. The populations show variations in t ...

''Streptopelia orientalis'' *

Sunda collared dove The Sunda collared dove (''Streptopelia bitorquata''), sometimes referred to as the Javanese collared dove, or Indonesian collared dove, is a species of bird in the family Columbidae. Sometimes confused with the Eurasian collared dove (''Strept ...

, ''Streptopelia bitorquata'' * Philippine collared dove, ''Streptopelia dusumieri'' * Eurasian collared dove, ''Streptopelia decaocto'' * Burmese collared dove, ''Streptopelia xanthocycla'' * African collared dove, ''Streptopelia roseogrisea'' * White-winged collared dove, ''Streptopelia reichenowi'' * Mourning collared dove, ''Streptopelia decipiens'' *

Red-eyed dove The red-eyed dove (''Streptopelia semitorquata'') is a dove that is a widespread and common in Sub-Saharan Africa. It has been listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List since 2004. Taxonomy The red-eyed dove was formally described by the ...

, ''Streptopelia semitorquata'' * Ring-necked dove, ''Streptopelia capicola'' * Vinaceous dove, ''Streptopelia vinacea'' *

Red collared dove The red collared dove (''Streptopelia tranquebarica''), also known as the red turtle dove, is a small pigeon which is a resident breeding bird in the tropics of Asia. The male has a blue-grey head and a red-brown body. The female is much plainer, ...

, ''Streptopelia tranquebarica'' The genera ''

'' and ''

'' were formerly placed in ''Streptopelia'', but have since been separated out to make the genus

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gr ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q30944 Bird genera Taxa named by Charles Lucien Bonaparte