Caribbean Dove

About the Caribbean Dove

The Caribbean dove (Leptotila jamaicensis) is a species of bird in the family Columbidae. It is found in Belize, the Cayman Islands, Colombia (San Andrés island), Honduras (Bay Islands), Jamaica, and Mexico (Yucatán Peninsula). It has been introduced to the Bahamas.

In the 18th century, the Caribbean dove was described under the name "white-bellied dove" by several naturalists including John Ray in 1713, Hans Sloane in 1725 and Patrick Browne in 1756. In 1760, the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Caribbean dove in his six volume Ornithologie. He used the French name Le pigeon de la Jamaïque and the Latin Columba jamaicensis. Although Brisson coined Latin names for species, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he included the Caribbean dove and placed it with the other pigeons in the genus Columba. Linnaeus included a brief description, used Brisson's Latin name Columba jamaicensis as the binomial name and cited the earlier authors... Wikipedia →