| Malagasy Turtle Dove | |
|---|---|
| On Praslin island, Seychelles | |
| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Columbiformes |
| Family: | Columbidae |
| Genus: | Nesoenas |
| Species: | N. picturata |
| Binomial name | |
| Nesoenas picturata (Temminck, 1813) |
|
| Synonyms | |
|
Columba picturata (Temminck, 1813) |
|
The Malagasy Turtle Dove (Nesoenas picturata), also known as the Malagasy Turtle-dove, is a bird species in the pigeon and dove family, Columbidae. It is found in British Indian Ocean Territory, Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mayotte, Réunion, and Seychelles. It has several subspecies. The Rodrigues Turtle-dove, an extinct but fairly enigmatic taxon from Rodrigues on the Mascarenes may have been another subspecies of N. picturata or a distinct species N. rodericana.
The Pink Pigeon (N. mayeri) is its closest living relative, and together they form a lineage apart from both the typical pigeons (Columba) and the typical turtle-doves (Streptopelia), slightly closer to the latter if anything. Consequently, either these two are both placed in Streptopelia, or – as is probably the most accurate solution at present – separated as Nesoenas. The present species was in former times sometimes placed in a 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.[1]
Though some island populations are rare – some precariously so – as a whole N. picturata is considered a Species of Least Concern by the IUCN.[2]
Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Streptopelia_picturata Nesoenas picturata] at Wikimedia Commons