Blue-spotted wood dove explained

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.

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.^[1] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.^[2] 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.^[2] 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.^[3] The specific name afer is the Latin word for "Africa".^[4] The species is now placed in the genus Turtur that was introduced in 1783 by the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert.^{[5] [6]} The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.^[6]

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.

Notes and References

1. Book: Brisson, Mathurin Jacques . Mathurin Jacques Brisson . 1760 . Ornithologie, ou, Méthode contenant la division des oiseaux en ordres, sections, genres, especes & leurs variétés . 1 . fr, la . Paris . Jean-Baptiste Bauche . 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.
2. Allen . J.A. . Joel Asaph Allen . 1910 . Collation of Brisson's genera of birds with those of Linnaeus . Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History . 28 . 317–335 . 2246/678.
3. Book: Linnaeus, Carl . Carl Linnaeus . 1766 . Systema naturae : per regna tria natura, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis . 12th . 1, Part 1 . Laurentii Salvii . Holmiae (Stockholm) . la . 284 .
4. Book: Jobling, James A. . 2010. The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names . limited . Christopher Helm . London . 978-1-4081-2501-4 . 35 .
5. Book: Boddaert, Pieter . Pieter Boddaert . 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 . Utrecht . 10 Number 160 . fr .
6. Web site: Gill . Frank . Frank Gill (ornithologist) . Donsker . David . Rasmussen . Pamela . Pamela Rasmussen . 2020 . Pigeons . IOC World Bird List Version 10.1 . International Ornithologists' Union . 14 March 2020 .