Malagasy turtle dove
| Malagasy turtle dove | |
|---|---|
_Mauritius.jpg)
| |
_Mauritius_2.jpg)
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| both in Mauritius | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Columbiformes |
| Family: | Columbidae |
| Genus: | Nesoenas |
| Species: | N. picturatus
|
| Binomial name | |
| Nesoenas picturatus (Temminck, 1813)
| |
| Synonyms | |
|
Columba picturata (Temminck, 1813) | |
The Malagasy turtle dove or Madagascar turtle dove (Nesoenas picturatus) is a bird species in the pigeon and dove family, Columbidae. It is found in Mauritian-Indian Ocean Territory, the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mayotte, Réunion, and the Seychelles.
MHNT
Taxonomy
The bird has several
Mascarenes
, was for some time suspected to be another subspecies of N. picturata, but today is generally considered a distinct species (N. rodericanus).
The
monotypic genus Homopelia. While this is not outright wrong, if the Rodrigues population is also placed in Homopelia and Nesoenas is considered distinct too, it would probably be considered oversplitting by modern authors.[2]
Status and conservation
Though some island populations are rare – some precariously so – as a whole N. picturata is considered a species of
IUCN.[3]
Footnotes
References
Media related to Nesoenas picturatus at Wikimedia Commons
- Cheke, Anthony S. (2005): Naming segregates from the Columba–Streptopelia pigeons following DNA studies on phylogeny. Bull. B.O.C. 125(4): 293–295. PDF fulltext
- Johnson, Kevin P.; de Kort, Selvino; Dinwoodey, Karen, Mateman, A. C.; ten Cate, Carel; Lessells, C. M. & Clayton, Dale H. (2001): A molecular phylogeny of the dove genera Streptopelia and Columba. DOI:10.1642/0004-8038(2001)118[0874:AMPOTD]2.0.CO;2 PDF fulltext