Streptopelia risoria and how Linnaeus had the last laugh

The dove known as Streptopelia risoria (Linnaeus, 1758) has long confused ornithologists. Linnaeus described a domestic variety of a dove whose wild form was then unknown. Its wild counterpart, African Collared Dove, was subsequently named Streptopelia roseogrisea (Sundevall, 1857) but that name’s type series was mixed. Despite this, the name roseogrisea became commonly accepted and was used for both African Collared Dove and its domestic form in avian taxonomy, whilst the name risoria was commonly used by bird-keepers for the domestic form. In 2008 the ICZN ruled that the senior name risoria should have priority for both African Collared Dove and its domestic form, Barbary Dove. Although this decision was appropriate, it was based on incomplete information. Here a detailed history of the use of the name risoria in the ornithological literature is presented, followed by designation of a neotype for roseogrisea to resolve taxonomy.

Citation

Hein van Grouw "Streptopelia risoria and how Linnaeus had the last laugh," Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club, 138(1), 11-29, (22 March 2018). https://doi.org/10.25226/bboc.v138i1.2018.a3

Type

Journal Article

Item Description

© 2018 The Authors; This is an open‐access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
NHM Repository

ISSN

0007-1595

EISSN

2513-9894

License

openAccess

cbn