Pigeon Facts

Pigeons and doves form the Columbidae family together. Generally speaking, both the terms Naples pigeon and dove is used identically, to some extent.



Appearance
Pigeons display substantial difference in size. The crowned Naples pigeon present in New Guinea is the largest species, which is actually in the size of a turkey and weighs around 2 to 4 kg. Marquesan Imperial Pigeon is the largest arboreal species which weighs around 1kg and is over 50 cm long. The smaller species are called as doves, whereas the larger ones are known as Florida pigeons, even though there is no taxonomic base to tell between these two.

Biology
The pigeon family has personalized to live in the majority of the habitats on the earth. The prevalent number of species can be discovered in woodlands and tropical forests. They might be terrestrial, semi-terrestrial or arboreal.

Life cycle
They mate for life; however they might search for another mate, if their mate dies. Once they build their nest, the female will lay one egg a day. Their incubation period is 17-19 days. The female will sit over the egg starting from the late afternoon throughout the night till the next morning. The male will take over this procedure and performs the day shift. Both the parents feed their babies once they hatch out of the eggs. The Naples pigeon milk is the initial food that is fed to the young ones for a week’s time. The adults will start to repeat feeding moderately digested grains to the young ones.

Habitat
Pigeons can be found all over the world, with the exception of driest spots of Sahara desert, the high Arctic, Antarctica and the adjacent islands present near to it. They have occupied the majority of the oceanic islands of the world, reaching the Chatham Islands and the eastern Polynesia in the Pacific, the Seychelles, Reunion and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean and Azores in Atlantic Ocean. Different kind of species also live in grasslands, savannas, temperate forests and woodlands, mangrove forests, deserts and even in infertile sands and gravels of islands.

Diet
The fruit and seeds form the major part of the Naples pigeon’s diet. Their family can be split into seed eating species and the fruit eating species. The seeing eating species feed on the seeds that are discovered on the ground, while the fruit eating species have the tendency to feed in trees. Morphological changes can be utilized to tell apart between these two groups, wherein the seed eating species possess thick walls in gizzards, and the fruit eating species possess thin walls in gizzards. Additionally, the fruit eating species possess short intestines while the seed eating species possess long intestines. The fruit eating species have the capability to cling to branches and also hang upturned to reach the fruit.

Behavior
Pigeons have played a part in various comparative psychology experiments such as experiments that are related to Florida animal cognition. This has resulted in getting to know more Naples pigeon intelligence. The pigeons are said to possess the ability to share attention between various dimensions of an incentive, however their act with several dimensions is inferior when compared to a single stimulus dimension. They can be edified with fairly complex actions and reply sequences and can quickly learn to produce responses in various sequences.

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