I heard that a dove is just a white pigeon. Is this true?

In a broad sense, pigeons *of any color* could technically be called doves, since doves and pigeons belong to the same family. However there are many species of both and, generally speaking, the species called doves have longer tails than those referred to as pigeons.

The white doves commonly used in magic acts and kept as pets are NOT white "street" pigeons. They are a white mutation of the domesticated Ringneck Dove, a slim bird with a long tail.

The pigeons seen in cities are feral (escaped) decendents of homing pigeons brought here from Europe in the 1800s and before, and these homing pigeons in turn were decended from the wild "rock pigeons" (sometimes called "rock dove") so named because they nest on cliffs.

Pigeons AND doves both come in a wide variety of colors and types.

A last note - the white "doves" often released at weddings are usually white homing pigeons. Homing pigeons will fly back to their owner's house, whereas real white doves would become lost and probably starve to death in the wild. Thus it is more practical as well as humane to use white homing pigeons. Your friend's confusion may have stemmed from this common practice.

Technically, all pigeons are doves, but not all doves are pigeons. To say pigeons and doves are all the same is like saying that since Baptists are Christian, then all Christians must be Baptist, or since a chihuahua is a dog, all dogs must be chihuahuas. It's just not so, there are many kinds of doves, pigeons are just one of them.

The bird commonly known as a pigeon is technically called a Rock dove, <i>Columbia livia</i>. There are many breeds of pigeon, just like there are many breeds of cats and dogs, all done through genetic manipulation by humans. Check out different types on the National Pigeon Association website, or just search "fancy pigeon" in Google :)

The "basic" pigeon you see everywhere is usually the Banded pigeon..light grey and dark grey bands on the wings. They have iridescent feathers on the throat and neck. A mature pigeon has a white cere, which is the fleshy part where the beak meets the head, and is where the nares (nostrils) are.


Hope this helps! :)
Bird Girl

p.s. I am a wild bird rehabilitator, and the rescue group for which I volunteer is one of few groups which does take in pigeons. We don't discriminate based on species...they deserve to have the same care and concern as any other species, in our opinion.

Doves are pigeons and pigeons are doves. There really is no difference. Some people say doves re smaller pigeons, but other than that there is nothing to show any difference at all. There are fawn doves and gray doves and white pigeons. The common pigeon is actually called rock dove in most areas.

There is no meaningful taxonomic distinction between doves and pigeons. They are all one family of birds, some of which (in English) are called �doves�, and others of which are called �pigeons�. It's not even consistent from one dialect of English to another which are called which. There are birds which we Americans would call doves, but which the British would call pigeons; and conversely, there are birds that we Americans would call pigeons, which the British would call doves.

In many lanuages (I want to say most languages, but I'm not certain that this would be true) there is no distinction between doves and pigeons. For example, in Spanish, there is only one word (�paloma�) that corresponds to these two English words (�dove� and �pigeon�). I recently had occasion to discuss this with an acquaintance from Russian, and have learned that in Russian, as well, there is only one word.


The question seems to presume that all �doves� are white. In fact, the standard �white dove� is an albino form of the common domestic ringneck dove. Due to poor eyesite (a side-effect of albinism) and lack of camoflage, these white doves rarely are found in nature, and when they do occur in nature, they usually do not survive very long. Of the birds that are called �doves�, most are in colors other than white. In fact, the domestic ringneck dove comes in many different colors.

Here's a picture of my own dove, Ava (formerly known as Avery, until �he� laid an egg): http://members.impulse.net/~thebob/Avery.jpg

Ava is a domestic ringneck dove. As you can see, she is not white, though she is the same species as the most common form of white dove.

Yes, we were actually talking about this is my greek and roman mythology class today.
Doves are the symbol of aphrodite (the goddess of love, beauty and sexual rapture). Aphrodite was rather promiscious, basically she slept around with all the Gods. aka she was "dirty" so thats why it makes sense that a dove is black because like aphrodite the dove is black because its being "dirty or promiscous"

I used to think that plane ones are white and the patterned ones are pigoens. They have different names in other languages too. But wikipedia mentions them both as same. If you search one of these in wikipedia, they would both come as 'doves and pigeons' Also when I searched pigeons in google, I also got a result of a grey plane one so I think they both may be same and there may be a difference but a little one. I like mentha's answer.

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no a pigeon is not a dove a dove is a smaller lighter in color bird and a pigeon is a super anoying bird thats super ugly and steels your churro at Sea World if u know what that is!

Luv Lexie
Thanx

Yes. A dove is indeed a type of pigeon.

Some of their genes are the same, and they look... and, ahem, SOUND (I have 2 pet doves next to me singing up a storm)the same, but they are not. Ask Abby!⏐
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