Pigeons

All 10 species of pigeons on WAnimals

Each one has its own full profile. This group does not replace them: it brings them together.

Conservation status

Where they live

Recorded in 74 countries. The ones with the most species in the group:

Where to see them

Did you know…?

• It is the wild ancestor of every domestic and homing pigeon in the world.

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• Both the male and the female produce crop milk, a secretion rich in fat and protein.

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• It can raise as many as 6 broods a year.

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• It is the only bird in Antarctica without webbed feet: it neither swims nor dives, and makes its living walking among the penguin colonies stealing the krill they regurgitate for their chicks.

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• It slips between an adult penguin and its chick at the very moment of feeding, buffets the adult and catches the falling food in mid-air: a kleptoparasitic technique it performs with extraordinary precision.

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• It is known as the little dodo for its hooked, toothed bill, so unlike that of any other pigeon, although genetically it is not the dodo's closest relative: that place belongs to the Nicobar pigeon.

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• It is the national bird of Samoa and appears on the country's banknotes, and even so barely a handful of living individuals have been documented over the last two decades.

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Ecosystems