Spilopelia is a genus of doves that are closely related to Streptopelia and Nesoenas, but distinguished from them by differences in morphology and genetics. Some authors[1] had argued that Stigmatopelia is the valid name as it appears in an earlier line of the same work by the Swedish zoologist Carl Sundevall,[2][a] but Richard Schodde and Ian J. Mason had earlier, in their 1999 zoological catalogue of Australian birds, chosen Spilopelia in treating these two names as applying to the same genus; their choice stands under clause 24(b) of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) which supports the decision of the first reviser.[4][5] The name Spilopelia combines the Ancient Greekspilos meaning "spot" and peleia meaning "dove".[6]
A phylogenetic position based on Johnson et al. (2001). A second possibility is that Columba is a sister of Streptopelia but the remaining clades appear to be monophyletic.[7]
Some ornithologists split the spotted dove into the eastern spotted dove (Spilopelia chinensis) and the western spotted dove (Spilopelia suratensis),[9][10] but this has not to date been accepted by the IOC.[11]
Notes
^The title page of Sundevall's book gives the year as 1872. The book was issued in two parts and the second part from page 74 that includes Spilopelia was published in 1873.[3]
^Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (2020). "Pigeons". IOC World Bird List Version 10.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
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