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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 small heads, relatively short necks and slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They feed largely on plant matter, feeding on seeds (granivory), fruit (frugivory), and foliage (folivory).
In colloquial English, the smaller species tend to be called "doves", and the larger ones "pigeons", although the distinction is not consistent, and there is no scientific separation between them. Historically, the common names for these birds involve a great deal of variation. The bird most commonly referred to as "pigeon" is the domestic pigeon, descendant of the wild rock dove, which is a common inhabitant of cities as the feral pigeon.
Columbidae contains 51 genera divided into 353 species. The family occurs worldwide, often in close proximity to humans, but the greatest diversity is in the Indomalayan and Australasian realms. 118 species (34%) are at risk, and 13 are extinct, with the most famous examples being the dodo, a large, flightless, island bird, and the passenger pigeon, that once flocked in the billions.
Pigeon is a French word that derives from the Latin pīpiō, for a 'peeping' chick, while dove is an ultimately Germanic word, possibly referring to the bird's diving flight. The English dialectal word culver appears to derive from Latin columba. A group of doves has sometimes been called a "dule", taken from the French word deuil ('mourning').[page needed]
Columbiformes is one of the most diverse non-passerine clades of neoavians, and its origins are in the Cretaceous and the result of a rapid diversification at the end of the K-Pg boundary. Whole genome analyses have found Columbiformes is the sister clade to the clade Pteroclimesites a clade consisting the orders Pterocliformes (sandgrouses) and Mesitornithiformes (mesites). The columbiform-pteroclimesitean clade, or Columbimorphae, monophyly has been supported from several studies.
The name 'Columbidae' for the family was first used by the English zoologist William Elford Leach in a guide to the contents of the British Museum published in 1819. However, Illiger in 1811 established an older name for the family group ("Columbini") and would actually be the proper authority for Columbidae.
The interrelationships of columbids (between subfamilies) and the ergotaxonomy of them has been debated, with many different interpretations of how they should be classified. As many as five to six families, along with many subfamilies and tribes, have been used in the past including the family Raphidae for the dodo and the Rodrigues solitaire. A 2024 paper on the systematics and nomenclature of the dodo and the solitaire from Young and colleagues also provided an overview of columbid family-group nomina. They recommended recognizing three subfamilies: Columbinae (New World doves and quail-doves, and columbin doves), Claravinae (American ground-doves), and Raphinae (Old World doves and pigeons including the dodo and solitaire). A 2025 paper on the molecular phylogenetic placement of the Cuban endemic blue-headed quail-dove from Oswald and colleagues found the species to be a sister group to Columbinae, as opposed to being a true columbine or a raphine as previous authors have suggested in the past. These authors recommended that the blue-headed quail-dove should be placed in fourth monotypic subfamily, Starnoenadinae.
These taxonomic issues are exacerbated by columbids not being well represented in the fossil record, with no truly primitive forms having been found to date.[citation needed] The genus Gerandia has been described from Early Miocene deposits in France, but while it was long believed to be a pigeon, it is now considered a sandgrouse. Fragmentary remains of a probably "ptilinopine" Early Miocene pigeon were found in the Bannockburn Formation of New Zealand and described as Rupephaps; "Columbina" prattae from roughly contemporary deposits of Florida is nowadays tentatively separated in Arenicolumba, but its distinction from Columbina/Scardafella and related genera needs to be more firmly established (e.g. by cladistic analysis). Apart from that, all other fossils belong to extant genera.
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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 small heads, relatively short necks and slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They feed largely on plant matter, feeding on seeds (granivory), fruit (frugivory), and foliage (folivory).
In colloquial English, the smaller species tend to be called "doves", and the larger ones "pigeons", although the distinction is not consistent, and there is no scientific separation between them. Historically, the common names for these birds involve a great deal of variation. The bird most commonly referred to as "pigeon" is the domestic pigeon, descendant of the wild rock dove, which is a common inhabitant of cities as the feral pigeon.
Columbidae contains 51 genera divided into 353 species. The family occurs worldwide, often in close proximity to humans, but the greatest diversity is in the Indomalayan and Australasian realms. 118 species (34%) are at risk, and 13 are extinct, with the most famous examples being the dodo, a large, flightless, island bird, and the passenger pigeon, that once flocked in the billions.
Pigeon is a French word that derives from the Latin pīpiō, for a 'peeping' chick, while dove is an ultimately Germanic word, possibly referring to the bird's diving flight. The English dialectal word culver appears to derive from Latin columba. A group of doves has sometimes been called a "dule", taken from the French word deuil ('mourning').[page needed]
Columbiformes is one of the most diverse non-passerine clades of neoavians, and its origins are in the Cretaceous and the result of a rapid diversification at the end of the K-Pg boundary. Whole genome analyses have found Columbiformes is the sister clade to the clade Pteroclimesites a clade consisting the orders Pterocliformes (sandgrouses) and Mesitornithiformes (mesites). The columbiform-pteroclimesitean clade, or Columbimorphae, monophyly has been supported from several studies.
The name 'Columbidae' for the family was first used by the English zoologist William Elford Leach in a guide to the contents of the British Museum published in 1819. However, Illiger in 1811 established an older name for the family group ("Columbini") and would actually be the proper authority for Columbidae.
The interrelationships of columbids (between subfamilies) and the ergotaxonomy of them has been debated, with many different interpretations of how they should be classified. As many as five to six families, along with many subfamilies and tribes, have been used in the past including the family Raphidae for the dodo and the Rodrigues solitaire. A 2024 paper on the systematics and nomenclature of the dodo and the solitaire from Young and colleagues also provided an overview of columbid family-group nomina. They recommended recognizing three subfamilies: Columbinae (New World doves and quail-doves, and columbin doves), Claravinae (American ground-doves), and Raphinae (Old World doves and pigeons including the dodo and solitaire). A 2025 paper on the molecular phylogenetic placement of the Cuban endemic blue-headed quail-dove from Oswald and colleagues found the species to be a sister group to Columbinae, as opposed to being a true columbine or a raphine as previous authors have suggested in the past. These authors recommended that the blue-headed quail-dove should be placed in fourth monotypic subfamily, Starnoenadinae.
These taxonomic issues are exacerbated by columbids not being well represented in the fossil record, with no truly primitive forms having been found to date.[citation needed] The genus Gerandia has been described from Early Miocene deposits in France, but while it was long believed to be a pigeon, it is now considered a sandgrouse. Fragmentary remains of a probably "ptilinopine" Early Miocene pigeon were found in the Bannockburn Formation of New Zealand and described as Rupephaps; "Columbina" prattae from roughly contemporary deposits of Florida is nowadays tentatively separated in Arenicolumba, but its distinction from Columbina/Scardafella and related genera needs to be more firmly established (e.g. by cladistic analysis). Apart from that, all other fossils belong to extant genera.