Blue-spotted wood dove

The blue-spotted wood dove or blue-spotted dove (Turtur afer) is a species of bird in the family Columbidae. It is abundantly present throughout Africa south of the Sahel; it is partially present in East Africa and absent in southern Africa.

Blue-spotted wood dove
In Gambia
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Columbiformes
Family:	Columbidae
Genus:	Turtur
Species:	T. afer
Binomial name
Turtur afer (Linnaeus, 1766)
Synonyms
Columba afra Linnaeus, 1766

Taxonomy

In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the blue-spotted wood dove in his six volume Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Senegal. He used the French name La tourterelle de Sénégal and the Latin Turtur senegalensis.^[2] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.^[3] When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson.^[3] One of these was the blue-spotted wood dove which he placed with all the other pigeons in the genus Columba. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Columba afra and cited Brisson's work.^[4] The specific name afer is the Latin word for "Africa".^[5] The species is now placed in the genus Turtur that was introduced in 1783 by the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert.^[6][7] The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.^[7]

References

1. BirdLife International (2016). "Turtur afer". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T22690628A93280584. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22690628A93280584.en. Retrieved 11 November 2021.
2. Brisson, Mathurin Jacques (1760). Ornithologie, ou, Méthode contenant la division des oiseaux en ordres, sections, genres, especes & leurs variétés (in French and Latin). Vol. 1. Paris: Jean-Baptiste Bauche. pp. 122–123, Plate 10 fig 1. The two stars (**) at the start of the section indicates that Brisson based his description on the examination of a specimen.
3. Allen, J.A. (1910). "Collation of Brisson's genera of birds with those of Linnaeus". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 28: 317–335. hdl:2246/678.
4. Linnaeus, Carl (1766). Systema naturae : per regna tria natura, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1, Part 1 (12th ed.). Holmiae (Stockholm): Laurentii Salvii. p. 284.
5. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 35. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
6. Boddaert, Pieter (1783). Table des planches enluminéez d'histoire naturelle de M. D'Aubenton : avec les denominations de M.M. de Buffon, Brisson, Edwards, Linnaeus et Latham, precedé d'une notice des principaux ouvrages zoologiques enluminés (in French). Utrecht. p. 10 Number 160.
7. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (2020). "Pigeons". IOC World Bird List Version 10.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 14 March 2020.

External links

• Xeno-canto: audio recordings of the blue-spotted wood dove
• Blue-spotted wood dove - Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds.