columbiform

▪ bird

Introduction

  any member of the group of birds (bird) that contains the pigeons (pigeon), doves (dove), dodoes (dodo), and solitaires (solitaire). The order Columbiformes is divided into the Raphidae, a family of extinct birds that embraces the dodo and the two species of solitaires, and the Columbidae, a family made up of extinct and living pigeons and doves. The names pigeon and dove are synonymous and imply no biological distinction.

      The pigeon family is a natural and homogeneous assemblage of about 316 species of readily defined birds, unique in producing, for feeding their young, a nutritive secretion from the crop wall. Pigeon's milk is similar in composition to mammalian milk and is also induced by the secretion of the hormone prolactin from the pituitary gland. Pigeons also are distinctive in their unusual manner of drinking, in which water is sucked in as a continuous draft, the process being assisted by muscular contractions of the esophagus, whereas other birds take a sip of water and then tip back the head to swallow.

General features

      With the exception of some highly specialized ground-living forms, all pigeons (pigeon) are readily recognizable. They range in size from birds (bird) the size of a starling (the diamond dove of Australia) to some as large as a female turkey (the crowned pigeons of New Guinea). The skeleton and body form is usually unspecialized, enabling pigeons to feed and roost arboreally yet also collect food from the ground. Adaptive radiation has been either toward a more specialized arboreal life or toward ground-feeding forms, some of which (quail doves) convergently resemble partridges (partridge). From the rock dove humans have bred various races of domesticated dovecote pigeons, racing pigeons, and other fancy breeds, while the domesticated form of the African collared dove (the so-called Barbary dove, sometimes erroneously given specific status) has long been a popular cage and dovecote bird. Because many pigeons are extremely well adapted to grain eating and grazing habits, some conflict with the agricultural activities of humans and are considered pests.

 Pigeons are virtually cosmopolitan, being absent only from the Arctic, Antarctic, and some oceanic islands. Five species have become extinct since the late 17th century, at which time the dodoes (dodo) and solitaires (solitaire) also vanished. The best-known example is that of the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) of North America, which was remarkable for its extreme gregariousness, a factor that helped the early settlers to exploit it ruthlessly; it was exterminated by the end of the 19th century. With the exception of several Pacific island races considered rare or endangered, other pigeon species have spread and increased, particularly as a result of human agricultural activities. Since 1930 the collared dove has spread 1,000 miles northwest from the Balkans.

Importance to humans

      Throughout the world, agricultural development has effectively provided a “super-habitat” for many seed-eating pigeons, enabling them to thrive and spread: the collared dove (Streptopelia decaocto) in India in relation to cereal production, the spotted dove (S. chinensis) in Southeast Asia in relation to rice paddy, and the laughing dove (S. senegalensis) throughout Africa, Arabia, and India, associated with native crops. Any species that can profit from agricultural expansion must be extremely well adapted—in a sense, preadapted—to such conditions and is likely to achieve pest status. Damage by the wood pigeon in Britain runs into the millions of pounds annually, but it is unlikely that it justifies expensive remedial action on a national scale; the cost of cereal spillage before and at harvest exceeds this amount. Indeed, it has been shown that artificial population control, employing conventional methods such as shooting, is not feasible at a national level and that bonus schemes do not improve control operations. Emphasis is now placed on providing remedial action, relying often as much on scaring as killing, only in the precise locality where damage is occurring or is imminent. The use of more extreme control methods (for example, poisoning) is ruled out in densely populated areas because of the risks to people and livestock. In addition, the risk to other wildlife is now recognized, and there is a widespread desire, public as well as official, not to upset the balance of nature for the sake of immediate but marginal benefits. Any damage caused by the mourning dove to cereal farming in the United States pales in comparison with the value of the species as a sporting bird.

      Nesting colonies of the rock dove (Columba livia) were farmed by Neolithic husbandmen for food, and gradually the process of rearing young in confinement led to the production of domesticated strains. Evidence for domestication extends back to 4500 BCE in ancient Iraq, and the bird was sacred to the early Middle Eastern cultures, being associated with Astarte, the goddess of love and fertility; later, in ancient Greece, it was sacred to Aphrodite and in Roman times to Venus. By the Middle Ages, dovecote populations were kept as a source of food on virtually every manorial estate in Europe. From the domesticated pigeons have been derived the various fancy breeds, such as tumblers and pouters, and many genetic aberrations that have given pleasure to countless enthusiasts. From the same source have come racing pigeons. Belgium, at the top of the international league table, has about 60,000 pigeon fanciers. Carrier pigeons were used to relay news of the conquest of Gaul to Rome, brought news of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo to England, and were used extensively for message carrying in the two World Wars.

      The popularity of the dovecote pigeon declined in the late 19th century as farmers realized that it was more efficient and brought greater financial reward to supply nations with bread than to raise dovecote pigeons for food. The release of thousands of pigeons, together with escapes, established the feral populations in numerous European towns, in North America (where it is often known simply as the “city pigeon”), and other parts of the world as far away as Australia. Being naturally adapted to rocky ravines, sea cliffs, and barren sites, the bird has readily accepted the sides of buildings, bridges, and other man-made “cliffs.” In towns it is fed and protected by an indulgent and benevolent public, at the same time being cursed by public health inspectors and those concerned with its depredations on stored grains. To a large extent, problems connected with food storage can be remedied by adequately proofing warehouses and other storage buildings against pigeons and by controlling spillage.

      The importance of feral pigeons as a reservoir and means of transmission of disease is becoming increasingly recognized, even though there are few cases where the transmission of disease can be proved. Feral pigeons appear to harbour ornithosis ( psittacosis) to a sufficient extent to provide a potential human risk. Up to three-quarters of various local pigeon populations examined in Paris were found to be infected, and the virus also has been isolated in pigeons in Liverpool, London, and elsewhere. Virulent strains of Cryptococcus neoformans, which causes a fungal disease of the skin, as well as cryptococcal meningitis (a disease of the lungs and central nervous system), have been isolated in pigeon excreta in various cities.

Natural history

General habits

      The evolution of the crop gland has been of vital importance to the pigeons. This bilobed diverticulum (a blind pouch) of the esophagus, located just posterior to the buccal cavity, serves as a storage organ for food. Subsisting for the most part on seeds, buds, leaves, and fruits, foods of low protein content and nutritive value, pigeons (pigeon) must consume large quantities during each feeding day. The rate of food intake can be higher than the digestion rate would otherwise allow, the surplus food accumulating in the crop to be digested after the birds (bird) have gone to roost. The ability to store food has enabled some pigeons to be represented among the small list of birds—geese (goose) and certain galliform birds are other examples—that can live as efficient grazers, occupying a leaf-eating niche in wooded country, either in the tree canopy or on the forest floor. Some, such as the wood pigeon (Columba palumbus), have secondarily adapted to more-open country to exploit the food supplies created by agricultural expansion. This pigeon is typical of the many that obtain their food partly in trees and partly on the ground. In midwinter it can subsist entirely on clover leaves and spends 95 percent of the day collecting the leaf fragments at 60–100 pecks per minute. By such intensive feeding, a single bird can collect 35,000 clover leaf fragments (45 grams, dry weight) per day. In spring this diet is supplemented with tree buds and flowers and also pasture weed seeds; in summer the diet is chiefly cereal grain; in autumn declining corn stocks on the stubbles are supplemented with tree foods such as acorns and beech mast.

      The mourning dove (Zenaidura macroura) of North America and the turtledove (Streptopelia turtur) and stock dove (C. oenas) of Europe rarely take green vegetation, do not feed in trees, and so are examples of the trend toward complete ground feeding. These doves (dove) subsist almost entirely on seeds collected from low herbage or the ground. In winter such food sources become unproductive, so the turtledove and the mourning dove, in the northern part of their respective ranges, migrate southward. Turtledoves migrate from northern Europe to winter in central Africa. The ancients were well aware of this movement: “They shall hasten as a bird out of Egypt, and as a dove out of the land of Assyria” (Hosea 11:11).

      Adaptation to ground feeding has progressed much further in various tropical genera, though the ecology of the species involved barely has been studied. In the New World a series can be traced from the typical Zenaida pigeons, through the ground doves (Columbina, Claravis, Metriopelia and Scardafella), which are mostly compact with short tails, and the Leptotila doves of South America, with longer legs suitable for running over the ground, to the New World quail doves (Geotrygon and Starnoenas). The last are relatively long-legged and partridgelike (partridge), spending most of their time on the forest floor. In the Australasian region there is a similar series, from scrub-country doves resembling Zenaida and Streptopelia—here represented by Geopelia—through the emerald doves and bronzewings (Chalcophaps and Phaps), to the Old World quail doves (Gallicolumba and various derivatives). Most of these quail doves live on the forest floor, collecting fallen seeds and fruits and seeds from low herbage, but in Australia a few are found in open country. Some aberrant species have evolved even further toward ground living, an extreme case being the pheasant pigeon (Otidiphaps nobilis) of New Guinea and adjacent islands, which resembles a pheasant. Evolution toward ground-living forms in Australasia and South America may have been helped by a paucity of mammalian carnivores that would normally be predatory on ground-living birds, which may partly explain why the extreme development of such forms has not occurred in Africa.

      The radiation of pigeons into fully arboreal, fruit-eating types also is most apparent in Australasia, with the brown fruit doves (Phapitreron), green pigeons (Treron), and the fruit doves (Ptilinopus and Ducula). Within these genera there are a large number of sympatric (coexisting) species differing by a wide variety of species-specific colour patterns that serve for mate recognition and, hence, species isolation. Nevertheless, the predominant colour of most fruit pigeons is green, which ensures effective camouflage when the birds are, as usually, among tree foliage. The success of fruit pigeons in this region may have resulted from the absence of competition from monkeys—important fruit eaters in Africa and South America. Fruit pigeons are adept at perching on slender branches and have large mouths that allow them to swallow large fruit. In tropical forests, appropriate trees with ripe fruit tend to occur sporadically, so most of the fruit pigeons move through large areas of country in flocks to seek out their food.

Behaviour

      When feeding on the ground, a pigeon must be looking downward for much of the time and therefore is vulnerable to predators such as foxes. The widespread habit of feeding in flocks has probably not evolved as an antipredator device but rather to help the birds to locate their food. Many species possess signal marks that become prominent in sudden flight, just as some rabbits display the white underparts of the tail. The wood pigeon has white wing bars that flash on takeoff, the Nicobar pigeon (Caloenas nicobarica) a white tip to the tail.

      A consequence of feeding in a flock is that differences in individual attributes are more readily manifested, and this finds expression in a strongly developed social hierarchy (peck order (dominance hierarchy)). In competitive situations submissive individuals are frequently supplanted by more dominant individuals, and efforts to avoid conflict result in their getting less food. During times of shortage they are the first to die, other flock members remaining perfectly healthy. There is no evidence that social behaviour has evolved as a mechanism whereby populations can achieve self-regulation of their numbers, as has sometimes been suggested.

      In most pigeons, a male in reproductive condition acquires a territory (territorial behaviour), which it proclaims with an advertisement call, usually a variant of the typical pigeon “coo” sound. Intrusion from other pigeons is prevented, at first by threat displays involving sleeking the plumage, stretching the head forward, and partially raising the wings. If these displays of aggressiveness are ineffective, the male then attacks the intruder, pecking at the opponent and delivering sharp blows with the carpal joint of the wing. Females behaving submissively are gradually tolerated, particularly by unpaired males, enabling pair formation to proceed. In pigeons that build their own nests in scrub and open woodland, territories may be large, but in some hole- and cavity-nesting species, such as the rock dove, only the area around the actual nest site is defended. A shortage of suitable sites forces the latter to be semicolonial. Many male pigeons perform display (display behaviour) flights in and near the territory to attract unmated females. Such displays frequently involve exaggerated movements, slow wing beating, and, in some, loud clapping noises produced by the wings. The underparts of the tail, and sometimes other areas of the plumage, may have contrasting light and dark patterns that are displayed during flight.

      Pair formation has been well studied in the rock dove and Barbary dove. A sexually mature male typically approaches a submissive member of the same species with the bowing display (in most pigeons this occurs within a previously acquired territory, but not invariably). Bowing is primarily an aggressive display, involving tendencies to advance and attack and to mount and copulate. It is usually accompanied by vocalization—the bow call. Females normally retreat from the bowing display and exhibit submissive postures but if receptive sink to the ground with lowered wings and tail. This may result in the male mounting immediately; if not, he gradually becomes less aggressive and commences the nest demonstration display. Being a submissive display, this reduces any female fear and attracts her closer, leading to a state where the pair now accept each other's presence. Displays that cement the pair bond involve mutual nibbling of each other's feathers (feather), particularly those of the head and neck. At this early stage of the cycle, the female exhibits juvenile behaviour, begging food from the male who in turn feeds her. This is the normal stage at which the female solicits and copulation occurs, interspersed with displacement preening. The female gradually assumes a more assertive role as she ceases to fear her partner and will attempt to push him off the nest site and occupy it herself. The male is now stimulated to search for nest material, which he brings back to the sitting female, and one or both incorporate the material into a nest.

      The specific acts of seeing her mate build a nest and of being involved herself stimulate the female's neuroendocrine system so that estrogen secretion rises, causing the oviduct to develop about five days before eggs will be laid. Seeing and incubating eggs, or seeing another bird doing so, stimulates prolactin secretion causing the crop gland to become secretory, so that “pigeon milk” is available when the eggs hatch. From this time onward the crop gland gradually regresses, so that the young, by the time they are ready to leave the nest, are fed almost entirely on environmental supplies. The production of a highly proteinaceous milk enables these seed- and fruit-eating birds to be independent of animal food when the young need maximum nutrition. The limitations of crop milk production also have doubtlessly set the limit to the maximum number of young that can be reared, so that no pigeon ever lays more than two eggs and many fruit eaters lay only one.

      Most pigeons are multibrooded and have long breeding seasons, timed to correspond with the period of high food availability for both adults and young. Temperate-zone pigeons, like other temperate-zone birds, use proximate (immediate) environmental signals to insure attaining reproductive maturity at the appropriate time, one of the major signals being the seasonal changes of day length. The neuro-endocrine apparatus of British wood pigeons (wood pigeon) is stimulated by the day lengths of March; the gonads become active at that time and remain in breeding condition until September, when day lengths once more fall below the stimulatory threshold. This period of activity is appropriate to the season during which actual reproduction is feasible. The turtledove is stimulated into breeding condition in April during its migration north and lays its first eggs in late April and early May. The gonads spontaneously regress in August, inhibiting further activity, even though environmental conditions are good and breeding success is at a peak. The onset of reduced breeding activity in the presence of day lengths that were stimulatory in April is a safety mechanism; by reducing the physical strains associated with breeding, it enables the adults to accumulate the energy reserves needed to replace the flight feathers (vital for successful long-distance migration) and to lay down fat reserves for migration. Many pigeons, however, molt throughout the breeding season.

      Most pigeons build their own nests, simple flat platforms of twigs, in scrub or woodland. Some tree-nesting species occasionally nest on the ground; others regularly do so. White eggs are particularly attractive to predators, so, presumably to reduce these risks, some of the ground-nesting pigeons (e.g., Old and New World quail doves) lay brown or cream-coloured eggs. In many pigeons, once the eggs are laid, both members of the pair share the duties of incubation, changing over on or near the nest site, so that the eggs are normally not left uncovered.

      A few pigeons have adapted to nesting in crevices and holes, reducing the risks of egg predation but increasing the chances that the adult will be cornered on the nest by a predator. Almost invariably, the clutch contains only one or two eggs. The newly hatched young are at first continuously brooded but later are left for long periods while the parents seek food (feeding behaviour). The larger pigeons usually visit the nest only twice a day, bringing a crop full of food if feeding conditions are suitable. The young, called squabs, beg for food by pushing at the parent's breast, at the same time emitting a squeaky hunger note. They insert their bills in corners of the parent's mouth and are then fed by regurgitation. Although a pigeon is capable of rearing an artificial brood of three young, only two squabs can be fed at a time, and natural broods of three are extremely rare. In several species so far studied, when the nestlings are about three-quarters grown, the parents begin a new cycle, building a new nest nearby and laying eggs.

      Unguarded young are less subject to predation than are eggs. This is the case partly because of the squabs' more cryptic colouring, but primarily it is because they are capable of making a marked threat display. At the approach of danger, they inflate their crops with air, causing them to become much bigger, and thrust their heads towards the enemy, at the same time hissing and snapping the mandibles together.

Ecology

      Many temperate-zone pigeons show marked population declines during the year. The high numbers resulting from breeding in temperate species can at first be maintained by extensive summer food supplies, especially in populations that depend on food sources cultivated by humans, such as barley or rice. But as food stocks decline in autumn and winter, reaching a critical level in relation to the population, juveniles suffer a high mortality, competing relatively unsuccessfully with adults. The change in population size from year to year thus depends primarily on the survival rate of juveniles through the period of food shortage, this being the key factor responsible for annual fluctuations. Long-term population trends, up or down, result from changes in the suitability of the habitat and are reflected in the number of adults that can settle to breed in an area. The average expectation of life for a British wood pigeon after reaching maturity is 2.25 years, which means that an average of 36 percent of the adult population dies each year. Whatever number of young 100 adults produce, only 36 need reach maturity to keep the population stable, and the rest are surplus. The juvenile mortality rate varies between 60 and 80 percent. Turtledoves are smaller and more at risk from predators; they also face the dangers of long migratory flights. Their adult mortality rate is nearer to 50 percent per annum, comparable to the 56 to 58 percent found in the North American mourning dove, which also is extensively shot for sport.

Form and function

Distinguishing characteristics

 Pigeons (pigeon) are of compact shape, usually plump because of well-developed pectoral muscles, and have a relatively small head. The wings (wing) are long and often pointed in species that are highly migratory and in those that obtain most of their food in trees. A few island or montane species that fly less have reduced wings. A long, pointed tail, as in the extinct passenger pigeon and the masked dove (Oena capensis), is probably correlated with a high degree of maneuverability, necessary during a rapid escape from the ground in woodland. The partridgelike pigeons have short rounded wings and a short tail. These are mostly birds (bird) of woodland, keeping to the cover of trees and bushes, but in Australia there are species that live completely in the open and nest on the ground. One, the flock pigeon (Phaps histrionica), makes long flights to its feeding and drinking places and has long wings, in many respects apparently living like the sandgrouse of Africa and Eurasia.

      Pigeons generally have short legs, but in those that resemble game birds the legs are lengthened for more effective terrestrial locomotion. Three toes point forward and one backward. The bill (beak) is usually small and soft and may be overhung by the fleshy operculum (cere), which is enlarged in some of the fruit pigeons and domesticated forms of Columba livia. The bill shape is associated with feeding habits, slender bills being typical of seed eaters and deeply hooked bills of fruit eaters, especially those like Treron, which feed on large hard fruits such as figs. This trend in bill development is seen to an exaggerated extent in the ground-feeding tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris), whose bill resembles that of the extinct dodo, a bird that may have had similar feeding behaviour. It tears and nibbles its food into small pieces in a manner reminiscent of the parrots, taking berries, fruit, and mountain plantain.

      Pigeons have dense and soft plumage, the region in the vicinity of the eye often being bare. In most species the female is slightly duller than the male, but in some the sexes are identical, and in a few species there are marked differences in colour. One kind of sexual dimorphism, in which display plumage is confined to the male, is correlated in most other birds with a tendency toward polygamy; but it is not clear whether this is true in pigeons. Another kind of dimorphism involves the sexes' being rather differently coloured. Thus the male of the orange dove (Ptilinopus victor) is brilliant orange, the female green; the male ruddy quail dove (Geotrygon montana) is purplish chestnut, the female brown. This trend seems to be associated with making the female, who does most if not all the incubation in these cases, more cryptic.

      With the exception of Treron, most fruit pigeons have a broad, short intestine and can void intact the stones from fruits they have eaten. Seedeaters have stronger gizzards and long, narrow intestines.

Physiology and biochemistry

      Domesticated pigeons and the Barbary dove have long served as subjects for avian physiological research, and knowledge related to their body functions is extensive. They appear to exhibit no remarkable specializations, compared with birds in general, with the exception that the crop becomes glandular in response to small amounts of the hormone prolactin. Prolactin was first discovered in pigeons by American zoologist Oscar Riddle in the 1930s, and pigeons still serve in the bioassay of this hormone from other sources. Prolactin also is produced by other birds. Among other functions, it reduces aggressive behaviour during the incubation and early brood-care stages of the reproductive cycle. It apparently is involved in the molting process and in mechanisms associated with preparation for migration. Pigeons are unique only in having secondarily evolved a new target organ responsive to the hormone.

      The sense of taste, as with most other birds, is poorly developed, and it is probably not an important factor in selecting food. Shape and tactile characteristics and, to a lesser extent, colour are much more important. The average number of taste buds is only 37, confined to the soft area at the base of the tongue and palatine region (in contrast, humans have about 9,000 and rabbits about 17,000). Pigeons can, however, exhibit a surprising sensitivity to certain substances, such as acids; only at extremely low concentrations are acetic acid solutions accepted as readily as pure water. The olfactory organs are well developed, but smell seems to be of little significance in the daily lives of pigeons; experiments to demonstrate their olfactory abilities have yielded conflicting results. Visual acuity is highly developed, as in most other birds, although training experiments demonstrate that pigeons can attain an acuity little better than humans.

Evolution and paleontology

      By the time they appear in the fossil record, the Columbiformes are already so well differentiated that their phylogenetic relations cannot be determined with certainty. The sandgrouse and pigeons (pigeon) resemble each other anatomically, but this may have resulted from convergence toward a similar mode of life. The earliest known pigeon is Gerandia calcaria from the early Miocene of France (about 23 million years ago), although the suborder probably arose in the Australasian region, where the greatest variety of modern columbiforms is found.

      The dodoes (dodo) and solitaires (solitaire) were highly specialized island forms that doubtless arose in the Mascarene Islands and were peculiar to those islands. Three species are known: the dodo (Raphus cucullatus) on Mauritius, the Réunion solitaire (R. solitarius), and the Rodrigues solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria). The dodoes and solitaires became extinct in about 1681, 1746, and 1791 respectively, as they fell easy prey to marauding sailors and could not compete with pigs and other introduced livestock. They were pigeonlike birds that had lost the power of flight in the safety of their predator-free island existence and had become large (as big as a turkey), heavily built birds with strong bills and feet. The wings had become rudimentary, and the sternum possessed only a small keel.

Classification

Distinguishing taxonomic features

      The most important features distinguishing the Columbiformes are the structure of the skull, sternum, and furculum. The several species have close thick feathers (feather) set loosely in the skin, lack the fifth secondary feather of the wing, and possess a crop. The structure of the bill and nostrils, the arrangement of the sternotracheal musculature, and the presence or absence of intestinal ceca distinguish the suborders. Behavioral characteristics are of doubtful validity in relating suborder relationships because the similarities may have arisen by convergence. Blood antigen relationships may be considered more reliable.

Annotated classification

Order Columbiformes

 Birds in which the palatine processes of the maxillae do not meet in the midline (schizognathous) and with vomer absent or vestigial. Palatine and pterygoid bones articulate with basisphenoid rostrum. Basipterygoid processes present, except in family Raphidae. Sternum with large lateral and smaller inner incisions, these often fused to fenestrae. Furculum U-shaped and with hypocleideum little or not developed. Nares separated by a complete internasal septum. Hypotarsus complex. Plumage, close and thick, feathers loosely set in skin. 5th secondary quill absent (diastataxic). Oil gland naked or absent. Well-developed crop present.

      Family Columbidae (pigeons (pigeon) and doves (dove))

 Intestinal ceca absent or minute, syrinx with sterno-tracheal muscles asymmetrical. Young altricial (helpless) and hatched blind; without real down. Basal part of bill soft and covered with swollen skin that envelops the slitlike nostrils as a cap (operculum). External nasal opening into skull tapers behind into a narrow cleft running back into nasal bone (schizorhinal); 14–15 cervical vertebrae. 11 primary feathers, the outermost much reduced. Usually 12–14, and exceptionally 16–20, retrices. Crop bilobed. Nesting in tree holes or caves or building flimsy platform of sticks on trees or ground. Eggs usually white, except brown or cream in some quail doves. 2 eggs in most clutches, but some genera produce only 1. Length 15–80 cm (about 6–30 inches); weight 45–4000 grams (0.1–9 pounds). Wide range of colours, from grays and browns to striking orange, green, or purple. Worldwide except subpolar regions and some oceanic islands. Approximately 42 genera, 316 species.

      Family Raphidae (dodoes (dodo) and solitaires (solitaire))

 Extinct but with no fossil record. Flightless, with much reduced furculum and wing, fused coracoid and scapula and no basipterygoid processes. Large; weight probably exceeded 10 kg (22 pounds). Limited to Mascarene Islands. 3 species.

Critical appraisal

      The subordinal limits of the Columbiformes seem to be well defined. The pigeons (pigeon) and doves (dove) make up a natural group, and early 21st-century DNA analysis supports the close relationship of dodoes (dodo) and solitaires (solitaire) to pigeons and doves. On anatomical grounds, sandgrouse resemble pigeons and were therefore placed in the same order for a time. After years of debate, however, DNA studies confirmed that the sandgrouse (Pteroclidae) should be placed in its own order (Pteroclidiformes); their resemblances to pigeons have been attributed to convergent evolution.

Ronald K. Murton

Additional Reading

Accounts of the natural history of columbiform birds are available in Derek Goodwin, Pigeons and Doves of the World, 3rd ed. (1983); Ronald Keir Murton, The Wood Pigeon (1965), on the biology of an abundant European species; Wendell Mitchell Levi, The Pigeon, rev. ed. (1957, reissued 1977), a complete discussion of the care and breeding of domestic pigeons; and A.W. Schorger, The Passenger Pigeon (1955, reissued 1973), an exceptionally thorough account of the natural history, economics, and demise of this once-abundant North American pigeon. In addition to Goodwin's book above, the taxonomy of pigeons is discussed in R.F. Johnston, “Taxonomy of Pigeons,” Condor, 64:69–74 (1962); Goodwin's “Taxonomy of the Genus Columba,” Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Zoology, no. 6, pp. 1–23 (1959); and E.W. Gifford, “Taxonomy and Habits of Pigeons,” Auk, 58:239–245 (1941).Ronald K. Murton Ed.

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