# Talk:Columbidae

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 6 February 2019 and 17 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): RameyEA, Kurtames.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:05, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

I have edited the Description section to be a bit more organized and added some material with reference. Please let me know what you all think and if you have any suggestions for further improvement.
RameyEA (talk) 06:37, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

I believe studies of pigeon cognitive ability have revealed some interesting facts, among them that they seem to do better with the "Monty Hall" problem than humans.
Perhaps this and under studies should be mentioned in a "Pigeon Cognition" section.--Jrm2007 (talk) 04:19, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I've flagged the Taxonomy and systematics section as confusing because it starts talking about specific drinking behaviour of Columbiformes without introducing the concept.  I am not an expert in this area and so I am simply flagging it as an issue. cuttellhell 02:04, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Columbidae. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130131120659/http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/enduring-doves.asp to http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/enduring-doves.asp
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).
This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 09:27, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Columbidae/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: ProgrammingGeek (talk · contribs) 13:32, 9 May 2017 (UTC)


### Criteria
### Review
Well-written:

Verifiable with no original research:

Broad in its coverage:

Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:


#### Result
#### Discussion
Please add any related discussion here.

Butting in here, the article should state at the outset that it is an order (Columbiformes) with a single family (Columbidae). This then gells with having the material on sandgrouse being formerly in the order, which otherwise looks odd being here.
Hey! Always welcome for improvements on the article. :D
Should mentioning that it is a single family be right? Even though it "is" a single family, now that the raphinae is extinct and the pteroclididae is removed from the order; however, would it not lead the readers to think that columbiformes always contained only one family columbidae? I mentioned it now in the first line of "Taxonomy and Semantics", so could you have a look at it and say if it looks good? I restructured the sentence too, so now it, in sum, says that the columbidae is the only family in the order, and also mentions it's reason. Adityavagarwal (talk) 07:49, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
Also, Columbiformes is definitely not Colymbiformes (to which it is linked at first mention)
Yup. Fixed the issue. I linked it to List of Columbiformes by population. Adityavagarwal (talk) 06:06, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
John H. Boyd III is an enthusiast with a great website, but his is essentially a self-published non-peer-reviewed tertiary source. The references he uses are mentioned on his page and should be looked up.
Yes. It really seems great for details on not only this article but bird articles in general. Also, references 28 and 29 are of his website. :P I will sure refer to his website for more edits on bird articles. Thank you. :) Adityavagarwal (talk) 07:49, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
Good luck. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:07, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

2.d) Apologies for the late response. The page was not on my watchlist, so I was unaware of the review going on. :P Also, thank you very much for waiting despite the delay and trouble caused by me. I tried fixing the copyvio issue, so could you please look (link) again?
6.b) For the images part, do you mean the 4 images below the lead section- "Baby pigeon", "Rock dove in flight", "A resting stand for pigeons", and "Rock pigeon courtship"? I removed the "A resting stand for pigeons" image. This is for that image is too zoomed out and the pigeon is not even properly seen, and really not relevant to the context, as you pointed out. I left the "Baby pigeon" in place, as it shows about the... well, baby pigeons? :P As for the "Rock dove in flight", this image shows the rock dove, whose mention is there even in the introduction. Finally, "Rock pigeon courtship" is an image containing rock doves, which also does not seem to be relevant. Could you say if more images should be removed (maybe the "Rock pigeon courtship")?
Thank You. :) ProgrammingGeek Adityavagarwal (talk) 05:47, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

One drive-by question, what are the red-link divisions in the taxobox based on? Some of them seem unconventional, for example by having several tribes within Raphinae... Seems the source is the website of a professor in economics? That seems highly suspicious, recent genetic analyses should be used instead. FunkMonk (talk) 10:17, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
Hi, and thank you for your input. :) The current classfication in the taxobox is based on the clade from the link. It is also present on List of Columbidae genera as per John Boyd's classification. It does seem to be based on the tribes, yeah (as per in the list of columbidae genera). I do not have much idea of John Boyd and his works, and on his website, it shows that he is from the Department of Economics. However, his works seem reliable, as I referred to his website when casliber mentioned it earlier in his comment (at the starting of the "discussion" heading). Adityavagarwal (talk) 10:56, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
Hmmm, I think we would need to see peer-reviewed sources for these claims, he seems to have made his own phylogeny based on various different studies. There must be a more conventional phylogeny we could use, per WP:fringe. FunkMonk (talk) 12:14, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
I have checked quite a lot now, and it does seem that JBoyd has reliably made that phylogeny here (also lists the citations, below). I also searched here and there (as none had the complete phylogeny), to search for parts of the tree, and it does seem that the phylogeny is correct. Do you suggest for some other source, instead? Adityavagarwal (talk) 18:50, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
The link you provided is adequate and the article is consistent with everything I've looked up. The amount of images below the lede would only be a problem to me if they were at the cost of prose, but they are next to the phylogeny chart which. Either way the number of images and their positions are a matter of taste and I've seen Featured Articles with more images in smaller spaces. The copyvio has been dealt with as well. Prose is fine and scientific terms are explained/linked to. To me, it looks like you've met all their demands and I can't think of anything stopping this article from passing now. SpartaN (talk) 09:14, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

This article cites John H. Boyd III's website which is a self-published tertiary source. Although it is an interesting site that discusses recent phylogenetic publications it is not a suitable source for the phylogeny of birds in wikipedia articles. Boyd lists some of his sources and these should be consulted and cited. I note also that Boyd likes to speculate and go beyond the published data as he explains:
"My approach contrasts with most checklist committees. They usually put substantial weight on traditional classifications, and try to avoid speculation, even when its clear that the traditional classification is wrong. In particular, they try to avoid making erroneous changes, and put a premium on stability."
"This checklist has a different purpose. It exists to speculate, to map out potential changes in the taxonomy. The price of focusing on speculation is to give up stability."
and
"The instability of the TiF worldlist may make it unsuitable for everyday use, although it should serve the useful function of highlighting potential changes regardless of your preferred checklist."
So in addition to the website being a self-published source, the approach is not suitable for wikipedia articles where we avoid speculation and value consensus and stability.  -Aa77zz (talk) 10:02, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

I tend to agree. To quote WP:SPS: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." From what I can tell Boyd's professional expertise lie in economics, not taxonomy (or any other related field) so his self-published work should not be considered reliable regardless of his aims. Alphathon /'æɫ.fə.θɒn/ (talk) 12:35, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
As replacement for the cladogram per Boyd, there's Soares et al. 2016, which contains an apparently full cladogram for Columbidae. The one drawback I can see is that none of the branches of that cladogram have anything more than provisional names. Given the current state of the Raphinae article, that may not be a bad thing, though. Esoteric bearcat (talk) 02:43, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

There is no sane explanation as to how this gobbledygook became all by itself the very singular standalone title of this page. Change it back ASAP.  
It is only an indication of how pervasive the extremist geeky editing has become on Wikipedia that is not just out of touch with reality but tramples on Wiki-editing rules and regulations in both letter and spirit.
This gibberish fails to meet even one of the 5 criteria:

-Recognizability
-Naturalness
-Precision
-Conciseness and
-Consistency.
It is neither of ANY of these things -- not even precision (which no doubt was the supposed intent). It is not a precise title because all throughout the article from top to bottom the word used is pigeon and dove. --Loginnigol 17:37, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Did you read the closed discussion above, at Talk:Columbidae#Requested move 31 August 2016?  – Corinne (talk) 17:42, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

the word pigeon is different for pidgin. they are totally different allophones. can they put a disclaimer?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.89.103.161 (talk) 19:25, 2 November 2018 (UTC) 

What about adding this animation to Columbidae#Behaviour? --Leyo 15:09, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

@Leyo: I put it in Columbidae#Flight, since there's no corresponding text in Columbidae#Behaviour... --Nemoschool (talk) 00:55, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. --Leyo 22:39, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I suspect this article's Good Article status needs reviewing. Whole sections are missing (where is breeding?) the standard of citations is pretty poor, there are citation tags in the text, the lead has info not in the article (and cited, a relic from before the article's expansion) and at the beginning of behaviour there is this solitary and incomprehensible statement "Male pigeons are more opportunistic to mate with another female." This needs a lot more work before its close to GA standard. Sabine's Sunbird  talk 19:11, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

It looks like the Description section of the page could be clarified by creating separate subsections, including one on anatomy.
The anatomy subsection would specifically include skeletal and muscular structures unique to Columbidae flight ability. We would also like to add a subsection about the flight feathers and agility. It would also link to the Bird anatomy page. Are there and other thoughts on this addition? RameyEA (talk) 02:16, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

The sentence in the lead "The species most commonly referred to as "pigeon" is the species known by scientists as the rock dove, one subspecies of which, the domestic pigeon, is common in many cities as the feral pigeon."
Should be changed to something like:
"The term "pigeon" used alone often refers to the domestic pigeon, which is common in many cities as the feral pigeon."
Scientists would largely know the species as Columba livia, and Rock Dove and Rock Pigeon are both in common use. And regardless, the current phrasing is redundant. Somatochlora (talk) 15:26, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

 Already done NiciVampireHeart 01:11, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Doves and Pigeons have long necks, not short necks. It says in the description, "These are stout-bodied birds with short necks, and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres." I want the part that says "short necks" to be replaced with "long necks". This is because in comparison to many other songbird species, such as black capped chickadees, american goldfinches, northern cardinals and blue jays, doves and pigeons have a long neck, especially when raised high in alertness. Their neck only appears short when tucked into their body when resting or relaxed. In proportion to their body, their neck is fairly long. 166.48.100.82 (talk) 23:46, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. This is fairly technical stuff, not an obvious error or typo. --Nemoschool (talk) 00:46, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

The current taxonomy is from the personal website an economics professor and as such cannot be considered a reliable source, further some of the taxonomic names used like "Raphini" appear to be original inventions by the author. The use of Raphinae as a major subfamily is inconsistent with that of used by the wikipedia article, which consists only of two genera (and is now considered a good article). The change was initially made by Videsh Ramsahai on the 10th of December 2016, this has been brought up before, as well as in the 2017 article review and the issue wasn't resolved in either of the discussions. I don't know if any large scale phylogenies of columbidae have been done recently, but such sources should preferentially be used. Pinging users from the last discussion: @Aa77zz: @Alphathon: @Esoteric bearcat: and relevant users @Adityavagarwal:, @FunkMonk:, @WolfmanSF: and @IJReid: Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:46, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

As far as I can see this paper from 2016 (open access) appears to represent the most recent macro-scale phylogeny of Columbidae, and therefore should be used in preference over a self published source. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:44, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Hey friends, the page mixes up to events in the Gospel of Luke. The doves were not offered at the circumcision of Jesus but at his Presentation on the fortieth day. Luke 2:22-24 Anchisides (talk) 11:19, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

My notable interest is limited to suggesting that a colleague — more committed to the topic than either I, or the doubtlessly overburdened Anchises — act on the preceding request, and (overwhelmingly more importantly) note (below, within this talk heading) having done so. This will facilitate freeing up for other tasks, the editors with free time on their hands, who might otherwise spend time at least considering a worthwhile improvement on this article (which has value sufficient for being neither neglected nor trashed).—User:JerzyA (at least for a while, stranded in ip-land) 2601:199:C201:FD70:99BA:370C:B613:98A2 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 10:33, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
Not "turtledoves," which are a New World species = Mourning doves. David notMD (talk) 18:32, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Pigeons can hear infrasound. With the average pigeon being able to hear sounds as low as 0.5 Hz, they can detect distant storms, earthquakes and even volcanoes. This also help them to navigate.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.203.79 (talk) 18:47, 14 February 2021 (UTC) 

Cher Ami is described here as "she" while other articles about the pigeon indicate that Cher Ami is a cock and therefore a "he".  Suggest either using "he" or neuter reference such as "the pigeon" as in other articles. 69.40.118.248 (talk) 19:31, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

 Done ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:37, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

section: feeding
Descendants of the domestic rock doves (Columbia Livia) reside in urban environments, disturbing their natural feeding habits. Urban living pigeons depend on human activities and interactions to obtain food, causing them to food on crumbs, spilled food, and out of trash cans. 
 Ksanch40 (talk) 17:37, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

 Done with edits based on source provided. Thanks, Heartmusic678 (talk) 11:46, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

It is precisely the same as this article, but more poorly written. TTTime05 (talk) 13:00, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello! This is to let editors know that File:Red-eyed dove (Streptopelia semitorquata).jpg, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for December 5, 2023. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2023-12-05. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page.  If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you!  — Amakuru (talk) 21:18, 30 November 2023 (UTC) 

The statement that the Passenger Pigeon is the only non-island species to go extinct is incorrect.  Should it be the only species of the family not an island species to go extinct? Dzbech (talk) 02:37, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

This article is not general enough; while domestic (including feral pigeons) rock doves were historically some of the most important and notable birds in human history, they have their own pages, thus the information on this page should be a more general discussion of the family's taxonomy, defining features, ecology, perhaps a discussion on extinctions, with a segment leading to the rock dove and all its descendants. The family is too diverse for the page to mostly talk about the human-adjacent species. Anthropophoca (talk) 04:20, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
There have been a number of papers (aggregated; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) on the taxonomy of columbids, and I've considered adding a phylogeny to the article, but the taxonomy section still needs tidying up and i'm afraid this is not my strong suit. Please advise and help.--Anthropophoca (talk) 15:03, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

It is important to include that pigeons and doves,even if they may belong in the same family, are not really the same bird. It is incorrect to say a dove is a pigeon, I assume. Platinumdove (talk) 23:55, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

I ask for two reasons: first, because this information should be part of the article, and second because I found a claim in another article of a pigeon flying 60 miles in one hour, which seems a bit much.  To be specific, in the article on Animals in War & Peace Medal of Bravery, there's a mention of a WW II carrier pigeon, G.I. Joe (pigeon), carrying an urgent message 20 miles in 20 minutes, and saving more than 100 lives.  This implies a speed of 60 mph, which sounds a tad excessive for a pigeon.  JDZeff (talk) 18:47, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

Update taxonomy according to http://jboyd.net/Taxo/List3.html#columbiformes and Birds of the World. Add a phylogenetic tree. I already updated this in the Spanish Wikipedia. Diferoch (talk) 22:15, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate.  Hey, it is wonderful that you are trying to improve the page, but please be aware that most edit requests are handled by volunteers who have no idea about the subject of the page, so you should always be very specific about what you are asking for. The less complicated work your edit seems for the volunteer, the less likely it is to be ignored. If you clarify your request in the "change x to y" format, I can look at it, (feel free to ping me) or you can set the request back to unanswered. Slomo666 (talk) 23:12, 11 October 2025 (UTC)