Zenaida doves


The Zenaida doves make up a small genus 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

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 or to the eared and mourning doves.

Extant species

The genus contains seven species:
ImageScientific nameCommon nameDistribution
Zenaida asiaticaWhite-winged doveSouthwestern United States through Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean
Zenaida auriculataEared doveSouth America from Colombia to southern Argentina and Chile, and on the offshore islands from the Grenadines southwards
Zenaida auritaZenaida doveCaribbean and the tip of the Yucatán Peninsula
Zenaida galapagoensisGalápagos doveGalápagos, off Ecuador
Zenaida graysoniSocorro doveSocorro Island in the Revillagigedo Islands; extinct in the wild
Zenaida macrouraMourning doveMost of Canada and USA to south central Mexico, Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and Panama
Zenaida melodaWest Peruvian dovefrom southern Ecuador to northern Chile