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Columbidae (/kəˈlʌmbɪdiː/) 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.
Mostly only by English speakers, the smaller species tend to be called "doves", and the larger ones "pigeons",[3] although the distinction is not consistent,[3] and there is no scientific separation between them.[4] 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, or rock dove, which is common in many cities as the feral pigeon.
Doves and pigeons build relatively flimsy nests, often using sticks and other debris, which may be placed on branches of trees, on ledges, or on the ground, depending on species. They lay one or (usually) two white eggs at a time, and both parents care for the young. Unlike most birds, both sexes of doves and pigeons produce "crop milk" to feed to their young, secreted by a sloughing of fluid-filled cells from the lining of the crop.
Pigeon is a French word that derives from the Latin pīpiō, for a "peeping" chick,[6] while dove is an ultimately Germanic word that refers to the bird's diving flight.[7] The English dialectal word culver appears to derive from Latin columba.[6] A group of doves is called a "dule", taken from the French word deuil ('mourning').[8]
The Columbidae are usually divided into five subfamilies, probably inaccurately.[16] For example, the American ground and quail doves (Geotrygon), which are usually placed in the Columbinae, seem to be two distinct subfamilies.[a] The order presented here follows Baptista et al. (1997),[17] with some updates.[18][19][20]
The family Columbidae previously also contained the family Raphidae, consisting of the extinct Rodrigues solitaire and the dodo.[20][21][22] These species are in all likelihood part of the Indo-Australian radiation that produced the three small subfamilies mentioned above,[23] with the fruit doves and pigeons (including the Nicobar pigeon). Therefore, they are here included as a subfamily Raphinae, pending better material evidence of their exact relationships.[24]
Overall, the anatomy of Columbidae is characterized by short legs, short bills with a fleshy cere, and small heads on large, compact bodies.[34] Like some other birds, the Columbidae have no gall bladders.[35] Some medieval naturalists concluded they have no bile (gall), which in the medieval theory of the four humours explained the allegedly sweet disposition of doves.[36] In fact, however, they do have bile (as Aristotle had earlier realized), which is secreted directly into the gut.[37]
In a series of experiments in 1975 by Dr. Mark B. Friedman, using doves, their characteristic head bobbing was shown to be due to their natural desire to keep their vision constant.[40] It was shown yet again in a 1978 experiment by Dr. Barrie J. Frost, in which pigeons were placed on treadmills; it was observed that they did not bob their heads, as their surroundings were constant.[41]
Granivorous species tend to have dull plumage, with a few exceptions, whereas the frugivorous species have brightly coloured plumage.[17] The Ptilinopus (fruit doves) are some of the brightest coloured pigeons, with the three endemic species of Fiji and the Indian Ocean Alectroenas being the brightest. Pigeons and doves may be sexually monochromatic or dichromatic.[46] In addition to bright colours, pigeons may sport crests or other ornamentation.[47]
Pigeons and doves are distributed everywhere on Earth, except for the driest areas of the Sahara Desert, Antarctica and its surrounding islands, and the high Arctic.[30] They have colonised most of the world's oceanic islands, reaching eastern Polynesia and the Chatham Islands in the Pacific, Mauritius, the Seychelles and Réunion in the Indian Ocean, and the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean.
Some species have large natural ranges. The eared dove ranges across the entirety of South America from Colombia to Tierra del Fuego,[52] the Eurasian collared dove has a massive (if discontinuous) distribution from Britain across Europe, the Middle East, India, Pakistan and China,[53] and the laughing dove across most of sub-Saharan Africa, as well as India, Pakistan, and the Middle East.[54]
The largest range of any species is that of the rock dove, also known as the common pigeon. [55] This species had a large natural distribution from Britain and Ireland to northern Africa, across Europe, Arabia, Central Asia, India, the Himalayas and up into China and Mongolia.[55] The range of the species increased dramatically upon domestication, as the species went feral in cities around the world.[55] The common pigeon is currently resident across most of North America, and has established itself in cities and urban areas in South America, sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.[55]
As well as the rock dove, several other species of pigeon have become established outside of their natural range after escaping captivity, and other species have increased their natural ranges due to habitat changes caused by human activity.[17] A 2020 study found that the East Coast of the U.S. includes two pigeon genetic megacities, in New York and Boston, and observes that the birds do not mix together.[56]
Other species of columbidae have tiny, restricted distributions, usually seen on small islands, such as the whistling dove, which is endemic to the tiny Kadavu Island in Fiji,[57] the Caroline ground dove, restricted to two islands, Truk and Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands,[58] and the Grenada dove, which is only found on the island of Grenada in the Caribbean.[59]
Some continental species also have tiny distributions, such as the black-banded fruit dove, which is restricted to a small area of the Arnhem Land of Australia,[60] the Somali pigeon, found only in a tiny area of northern Somalia,[61] and Moreno's ground dove, endemic to the area around Salta and Tucuman in northern Argentina.[17]
Seeds and fruit form the major component of the diets of pigeons and doves, and [30][62] the family can be divided between the seed-eating, or granivorous, species (subfamily Columbinae) and the fruit-and-mast-eating, or frugivorous, species, which make up the other four subfamilies.[63]
In addition to fruit and seeds, a number of other food items are taken by many species. Some, particularly the ground doves and quail-doves, eat a large number of prey items such as insects and worms.[63] One species, the atoll fruit dove, is specialised in taking insect and reptile prey.[63] Snails, moths, and other insects are taken by white-crowned pigeons, orange fruit doves, and ruddy ground doves.[17]
Urban feral pigeons, descendants of domestic rock doves (Columbia Livia), reside in urban environments, disturbing their natural feeding habits. They depend on human activities and interactions to obtain food, causing them to forage for spilled food or food provided by humans.[65]
While many species of pigeons and doves have benefited from human activities and have increased their ranges, many other species have declined in numbers and some have become threatened or even succumbed to extinction.[66] Among the ten species to have become extinct since 1600 (the conventional date for estimating modern extinctions) are two of the most famous extinct species, the dodo and the passenger pigeon.[66]
Around 59 species of pigeons and doves are threatened with extinction today, about 19% of all species.[70] Most of these are tropical and live on islands. All of the species are threatened by introduced predators, habitat loss, hunting, or a combination of these factors.[69] In some cases, they may be extinct in the wild, as is the Socorro dove of Socorro Island, Mexico, last seen in the wild in 1972, driven to extinction by habitat loss and introduced feral cats.[71] In some areas, a lack of knowledge means the true status of a species is unknown; the Negros fruit dove has not been seen since 1953,[72] and may or may not be extinct, and the Polynesian ground dove is classified as critically endangered, as whether it survives or not on remote islands in the far west of the Pacific Ocean is unknown.[73]
The rock dove has been domesticated for hundreds of years.[81] It has been bred into several varieties kept by hobbyists, of which the best known is the homing pigeon or racing homer.[81] Other popular breeds are tumbling pigeons such as the Birmingham roller, and fancy varieties that are bred for certain physical characteristics such as large feathers on the feet or fan-shaped tails. Domesticated rock pigeons are also bred as carrier pigeons,[47] used for thousands of years to carry brief written messages,[82] and release doves used in ceremonies.[83] White doves are also used for entertainment and amusement, as they are capable of solving puzzles and performing intricate tricks.[84] A variant called the zurito, bred for its speed, may be used in live pigeon shooting.[85][86]
In ancient Mesopotamia, doves were prominent animal symbols of Inanna-Ishtar, the goddess of love, sexuality, and war.[87][88] Doves are shown on cultic objects associated with Inanna as early as the beginning of the third millennium BC.[87] Lead dove figurines were discovered in the temple of Ishtar at Aššur, dating to the thirteenth century BC,[87] and a painted fresco from Mari, Syria, shows a giant dove emerging from a palm tree in the temple of Ishtar,[88] indicating that the goddess herself was sometimes believed to take the form of a dove.[88] In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim releases a dove and a raven to find land; the dove merely circles and returns.[89] Only then does Utnapishtim send forth the raven, which does not return, and Utnapishtim concludes the raven has found land.[89]
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