Zenaida doves

Zenaida doves
Mourning dove (Zenaida macroura)
Call of a mourning dove
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Columbiformes
Family:	Columbidae
Subfamily:	Columbinae
Genus:	Zenaida Bonaparte, 1838
Type species
Zenaida amabilis Bonaparte, 1838
Species
See text.
Synonyms
Melopelia Zenaidura

The zenaida doves make up a small genus (Zenaida) of American doves in the family Columbidae.

The genus was introduced in 1838 by French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte. The name commemorates his wife, Zénaïde Laetitia Julie Bonaparte, niece of Napoleon Bonaparte. The type species is the Zenaida dove, Zenaida aurita. It is the national bird of Anguilla.

Systematics

DNA sequence analysis confirms that the white-winged and West Peruvian doves are the most distinct and that they should be treated as distinct species. Relationships among the other species are quite unequivocal, too; what is not quite clear is whether the Galapagos dove is most closely related to the zenaida dove (as tentatively indicated by morphology) or to the eared and mourning doves (as suggested by DNA sequences — although with a very low confidence level – and, most robustly, biogeography).

Zenaidini  Geotrygon – 9 species Leptotila – 11 species Leptotrygon – olive-backed quail-dove Zenaida – 7 species Zentrygon – 8 species

Cladogram showing the position of genera in the tribe Zenaidini.

Zenaida  White-winged dove (Z. asiatica) West Peruvian dove (Z. meloda) Zenaida dove (Z. aurita) Eared dove (Z. auriculata) Socorro dove (Z. graysoni) Mourning dove (Z. macroura)

Cladogram showing the positions of the doves in the genus Zenaida.

Extant species

The genus contains seven species:

Image	Scientific name	Common name	Distribution
	Zenaida asiatica	White-winged dove	Southwestern United States through Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean
	Zenaida auriculata	Eared dove	South America from Colombia to southern Argentina and Chile, and on the offshore islands from the Grenadines southwards
	Zenaida aurita	Zenaida dove	Caribbean and the tip of the Yucatán Peninsula
	Zenaida galapagoensis	Galápagos dove	Galápagos, off Ecuador
	Zenaida graysoni	Socorro dove	Socorro Island in the Revillagigedo Islands; extinct in the wild
	Zenaida macroura	Mourning dove	Most of Canada and USA to south central Mexico, Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and Panama
	Zenaida meloda	West Peruvian dove	from southern Ecuador to northern Chile

See also

• Passenger pigeon, a similar-looking extinct species