The passenger pigeon or wild pigeon is an extinct species of pigeon that was endemic to North America. Its common name is derived from the French word passager, meaning "passing by", due to the migratory habits of the species. The scientific name also refers to its migratory characteristics. The morphologically similar mourning dove was long thought to be its closest relative, and the two were at times confused, but genetic analysis has shown that the genus Patagioenas is more closely related to it than the Zenaida doves.
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 seeds, fruits, and plants. The family occurs worldwide, but the greatest variety is in the Indomalayan and Australasian realms.
The rock dove, rock pigeon, or common pigeon is a member of the bird family Columbidae. In common usage, it is often simply referred to as the "pigeon".
The pigeon guillemot is a species of bird in the auk family, Alcidae. One of three species in the genus Cepphus, it is most closely related to the spectacled guillemot. There are five subspecies of the pigeon guillemot; all subspecies, when in breeding plumage, are dark brown with a black iridescent sheen and a distinctive wing patch broken by a brown-black wedge. Its non-breeding plumage has mottled grey and black upperparts and white underparts. The long bill is black, as are the claws. The legs, feet, and inside of the mouth are red. It closely resembles the black guillemot, which is slightly smaller and lacks the dark wing wedge present in the pigeon guillemot.
The common wood pigeon or common woodpigeon, also known as simply wood pigeon, wood-pigeon or woodpigeon, is a large species in the dove and pigeon family (Columbidae), native to the western Palearctic. It belongs to the genus Columba, which includes closely related species such as the rock dove. It has historically been known as the ring dove, and is locally known in southeast England as the "culver"; the latter name has given rise to several areas known for keeping pigeons to be named after it, such as Culver Down. It has a flexible diet, predominantly feeding on vegetable matter, including cereal crops, leading to them being regarded as an agricultural pest. Wood pigeons are extensively hunted over large parts of their range, but this does not seem to have a great impact on their population.
The mourning dove is a member of the dove family, Columbidae. The bird is also known as the American mourning dove, the rain dove, and colloquially as the turtle dove, and was once known as the Carolina pigeon and Carolina turtledove. It is one of the most abundant and widespread of all North American birds and a popular gamebird, with more than 20 million birds shot annually in the U.S., both for sport and meat. Its ability to sustain its population under such pressure is due to its prolific breeding; in warm areas, one pair may raise up to six broods of two young each in a single year. The wings make an unusual whistling sound upon take-off and landing, a form of sonation. The bird is a strong flier, capable of speeds up to 88 km/h (55 mph).
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 around Perth and Fremantle. This small long-tailed dove is found in dry scrub and semi-desert habitats where pairs can often be seen feeding on the ground. A rufous and black chequered necklace gives it a distinctive pattern and is also easily distinguished from other doves by its call. Other names include laughing turtle dove, palm dove and Senegal dove while in Asia the name of the little brown dove is often used.
The trocaz pigeon, Madeira laurel pigeon or long-toed pigeon is a pigeon which is endemic to the island of Madeira, Portugal. It is a mainly grey bird with a pinkish breast; its silvery neck patch and lack of white wing markings distinguish it from its close relative and probable ancestor, the common wood pigeon. Its call is a characteristic six-note cooing, weaker and lower-pitched than that of the wood pigeon. Despite its bulky, long-tailed appearance, this pigeon has a fast, direct flight.
Coextinction and cothreatened refer to the phenomena of the loss or decline of a host species resulting in the loss or endangerment of an other species that depends on it, potentially leading to cascading effects across trophic levels. The term originated by the authors Stork and Lyal (1993) and was originally used to explain the extinction of parasitic insects following the loss of their specific hosts. The term is now used to describe the loss of any interacting species, including competition with their counterpart, and specialist herbivores with their food source. Coextinction is especially common when a keystone species goes extinct.
The band-tailed pigeon is a medium-sized bird of the Americas. Its closest relatives are the Chilean pigeon and the ring-tailed pigeon, which form a clade of Patagioenas with a terminal tail band and iridescent plumage on their necks. There are at least 8 sub-species, and some authorities split this species into the northern band-tailed pigeon and the southern band-tailed pigeon.
The white-crowned pigeon is a fruit and seed-eating species of bird in the dove and pigeon family Columbidae. It is found primarily in the Caribbean.
The uropygial gland, informally known as the preen gland or the oil gland, is a bilobed sebaceous gland possessed by the majority of birds used to distribute the gland's oil through the plumage by means of preening. It is located dorsally at the base of the tail and is greatly variable in both shape and size. In some species, the opening of the gland has a small tuft of feathers to provide a wick for the preen oil. It is a holocrine gland enclosed in a connective tissue capsule made up of glandular acini that deposit their oil secretion into a common collector tube ending in a variable number of pores (openings), most typically two. Each lobe has a central cavity that collects the secretion from tubules arranged radially around the cavity. The gland secretion is conveyed to the surface via ducts that, in most species, open at the top of a papilla.
The Mauritius blue pigeon is an extinct species of blue pigeon formerly endemic to the Mascarene island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar. It has two extinct relatives from the Mascarenes and three extant ones from other islands. It is the type species of the genus of blue pigeons, Alectroenas. It had white hackles around the head, neck and breast and blue plumage on the body, and it was red on the tail and the bare parts of the head. These colours were thought similar to those of the Dutch flag, a resemblance reflected in its French common name, Pigeon Hollandais. The juveniles may have been partially green. It was 30 cm (12 in) long and larger and more robust than any other blue pigeon species. It fed on fruits, nuts, and molluscs, and was once widespread in the forests of Mauritius.
The silvery pigeon, also known as silvery wood-pigeon or grey wood-pigeon is a species of pigeon found in Indonesia and Malaysia. It was thought to be extinct but wild populations rediscovered in 2008 near Masokut Island might represent this species, and photographs from Simeulue confirm its existence there.
Mountain pigeons are four species of birds in the genus Gymnophaps in the pigeon family Columbidae. They are found on islands in eastern Indonesia and Melanesia, where they inhabit hill and montane forest. They mostly have dull grey, white, or chestnut-brown plumage, with bright red skin around the eyes being their most distinctive feature. Males and females mostly look alike, but the Papuan mountain pigeon shows slight sexual dimorphism. Mountain pigeons are very social and are usually seen in flocks of at least 10–40 birds, although some species can form flocks of more than 100 individuals. They are generally quiet and do not make many vocalisations. However, they make a distinctive whooshing noise while leaving their high-altitude roosts to feed in the morning.
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, containing only the pink pigeon of Mauritius.
Rallicola extinctus is an extinct species of phtilopterid louse. This parasite was only known to live on the now extinct huia and is thought to have become extinct with its host. It was initially placed in its own separate genus, Huiacola, which means "huia inhabitant". It was endemic to New Zealand's North Island.
The spotted green pigeon or Liverpool pigeon is a species of pigeon which is most likely extinct. It was first mentioned and described in 1783 by John Latham, who had seen two specimens of unknown provenance and a drawing depicting the bird. The taxonomic relationships of the bird were long obscure, and early writers suggested many different possibilities, though the idea that it was related to the Nicobar pigeon prevailed, and it was therefore placed in the same genus, Caloenas. Today, the species is only known from a specimen kept in World Museum, Liverpool. Overlooked for much of the 20th century, it was recognised as a valid extinct species by the IUCN Red List only in 2008. It may have been native to an island somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean or the Indian Ocean, and it has been suggested that a bird referred to as titi by Tahitian islanders was this bird. In 2014, a genetic study confirmed it as a distinct species related to the Nicobar pigeon, and showed that the two were the closest relatives of the extinct dodo and Rodrigues solitaire.
A large proportion of living species on Earth live a parasitic way of life. Parasites have traditionally been seen as targets of eradication efforts, and they have often been overlooked in conservation efforts. In the case of parasites living in the wild – and thus harmless to humans and domesticated animals – this view is changing.
Colpocephalum is a genus of chewing louse. Christian Ludwig Nitzsch named the genus in 1818. The Plenary Powers of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature selected Colpocephalum zebraBurmeister, 1838 as its type species in the 1950s. There are approximately 135 species in this genus, and they are ectoparasites of birds in at least a dozen different orders.
