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 feed on plants, and can be taxonomically divided amongst granivores, that feed mostly on the ground on seeds, and frugivores, that feed mostly on fruits, from branches. The family occurs worldwide, often in close proximity with humans, but the greatest variety is in the Indomalayan and Australasian realms.
The European turtle dove is a threatened or vulnerable 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 to winter.
The Oriental turtle dove or rufous turtle dove is a member of the bird family Columbidae. The species has a wide native distribution range from Central Asia east across Asia to Japan. The populations show variations in the patterning of plumage and have been designated into at least six named subspecies. Populations in the higher latitudes tend to migrate south in winter, while those closer to the tropics are sedentary. Vagrants have been recorded in North America. The species is predominantly granivorous and forages on the ground.
The bird genus Columba comprises a genus of medium to large pigeons. The terms "dove" and "pigeon" are used indiscriminately for smaller and larger Columbidae, respectively. Columba species are mostly termed "pigeons", and in many cases "wood pigeons", but some, are termed "doves". The rock dove has given rise to the majority of domesticated pigeon breeds, such as the racing pigeon and the fantail pigeon, some of which have become feral. Meanwhile, "wood pigeon" by itself usually means the common wood pigeon.
The Nicobar pigeon or Nicobar dove is a bird found on small islands and in coastal regions from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, east through the Indonesian Archipelago, to the Solomons and Palau. It is the only living member of the genus Caloenas alongside the extinct spotted green pigeon and Kanaka pigeon, and is the closest living relative of the extinct dodo and Rodrigues solitaire.
The spotted dove or eastern spotted dove 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 East and Southeast Asia. The species has been introduced to many parts of the world and feral populations have become established.
The laughing dove is a small pigeon that is a resident breeder in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Western Australia where it has established itself in the wild after being released from Perth Zoo in 1898. This small long-tailed dove is found in dry scrub and semi-desert habitats where pairs can often be seen feeding on the ground. It is closely related to the spotted dove which is distinguished by a white and black chequered necklace. Other names include laughing turtle dove, palm dove and Senegal dove while in Asia the name little brown dove is often used.
The vinaceous dove is a bird species in the pigeon family Columbidae that widely resident across the Sahel and Sudan (region).
Streptopelia is a genus of 15 species of birds in the pigeon and dove family Columbidae native to the Old World in Africa, Europe, and Asia. These are mainly slim, small to medium-sized species. The upperparts tend to be buffy brown and the underparts are often a shade of pinkish-brown, and they have a characteristic black-and-white patch on the neck. They have cooing or purring songs, monotonous in some, restful and soothing in others. The genus divides into two groups, the collared dove group with uniform upperparts and a black half-collar edged with white, and the turtle dove group with patterned upperparts and a barred side panel on the neck. They range in size from the 20–23 cm red collared dove to the 33–35 cm oriental turtle dove. Most of the species are resident or disperse over short distances, but two are long-distance migrants breeding in temperate areas and wintering in the tropics. The sexes are not differentiated in most of the species, except for the red collared dove, where the males are orange-red with a greyish head, and the females a duller brown.
The band-tailed pigeon is a pigeon native to the Americas, being the largest pigeon native to North America. They are a native species throughout the Southwestern United States and Mexico, extending down to Peru.
The scaled pigeon is a large New World tropical dove. It is a resident breeder from southern Mexico south to western Ecuador, southern Brazil, northern Argentina, and Trinidad.
The pale-vented pigeon is a large pigeon found in the tropical Americas. Formerly often placed in Columba, it actually belongs to a clade of the older New World genus Patagioenas. With its relatives it represents an evolutionary radiation extending through most of the warm-temperate to tropical Americas. Grey-hued birds, even their males generally lack iridescent display plumage, although the present species has some coppery gloss on the nape.
The pink pigeon 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 become extinct. It was on the brink of extinction in 1991 when only 10 individuals remained, but its numbers have increased due to the efforts of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust since 1977. While the population remains at below 500 birds as of 2011, the IUCN downlisted the species from Critically endangered to Endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2000, and then downlisted it again to Vulnerable in 2018.
The Réunion pink pigeon is an extinct subspecies of pigeon that formerly lived on the Mascarene island of Réunion. It is known from the description of a rusty-red pigeon given by Dubois in 1674 and a single subfossil humerus that agrees with that of the pink pigeon of Mauritius in generic characteristics, except being slightly longer. Also, Dubois' reference to the bill being red at the base and the eyes being surrounded by a red ring suggest that this species was closely allied to the Mauritius taxon. Dubois' description was as follows:
wild pigeons, everywhere full with them, some with slaty-coloured feathering [Alectroenas?], the others russet-red [N. duboisi]. They are a little larger than the European pigeons, and have larger bills, red at the end close to the head, the eyes ringed with the colour of fire, like pheasants. There is a season when they are so fat that one can no longer see their cloaca [croupion]. They are very good tasting. Wood-pigeons and turtle-doves, as one sees in Europe and as good.
Patagioenas is a genus of New World pigeons whose distinctness from the genus Columba was long disputed but ultimately confirmed. It is basal to the Columba-Streptopelia radiation with their ancestors diverging from that lineage likely over 8 million years ago. While the biogeographic pattern of this group suggests that the ancestors of typical pigeons and turtle-doves settled the Old World from the Americas, Patagioenas may also be the offspring of Old World pigeons that radiated into different genera later, given that the cuckoo-doves (Macropygia) of Southeast Asia also seem to be closely related.
The blue pigeons are a genus, Alectroenas, of birds in the dove and pigeon family Columbidae. They are native to islands in the western Indian Ocean.
The Malagasy turtle dove or Madagascar turtle dove is a bird species in the pigeon and dove family, Columbidae.
Columbinae is a subfamily of birds from the family Columbidae. Otherwise, four genera Geotrygon, Leptotila, Starnoenas and Zenaida form subfamily Leptotilinae.
Spilopelia is a genus of doves that are closely related to Streptopelia and Nesoenas, but distinguished from them by differences in morphology and genetics. Some authors had argued that Stigmatopelia is the valid name as it appears in an earlier line of the same work by the Swedish zoologist Carl Sundevall, but Richard Schodde and Ian J. Mason had earlier, in their 1999 zoological catalogue of Australian birds, chosen Spilopelia in treating these two names as applying to the same genus; their choice stands under clause 24(b) of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) which supports the decision of the first reviser. The name Spilopelia combines the Ancient Greek spilos meaning "spot" and peleia meaning "dove".
