Pacific Dove

About the Pacific Dove

The West Peruvian dove or Pacific dove (Zenaida meloda), known locally as tórtola melódica or cuculí, is a species of dove in the genus Zenaida found on the South American Pacific coast. It was initially described by Swiss naturalist Johann Jakob von Tschudi in 1843 as Columba meloda, based upon a holotype specimen collected from a western slope of the Andes mountains in Peru. It has previously been considered conspecific with the white-winged dove (Zenaida asiatica), but has been retained as its own species based on genetic data and differences in plumage, soft part coloration, and vocalization and territorial song, which is not a learned behavior in doves.

Speciation between the white-winged dove and West Peruvian dove likely took place between 2 to 2.7 million years ago, beginning shortly after the formation of the Central American land bridge (around 3 million years ago), which enabled the dispersal of North American Zenaida doves into Central & South America and facilitated speciation.

The white-winged dove and the West Peruvian dove are each others' closest relatives, and they together form a clade which is a sister group to the rest of genus Zenaida. Wikipedia →