Streptopelia turtur
The European turtle dove is a threatened or vulnerable member of the bird family Columbidae, the doves and pigeons. It breeds over a wide area of the south western Palearctic including north Africa but migrates to northern sub-Saharan Africa in winter.

Charles J. Sharp · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- European turtle-dovePBDB
- Sits inside
- StreptopeliaPBDB
- Diet
- frugivore, granivorePBDB, for Columbidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Columbidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Columbidae
- Mass
- 8.2 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 117 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 774 ka to 0 Mya.
4 occurrences of Streptopelia turtur on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
4 occurrences- Pleistocene50%
- Holocene50%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Streptopelia turtur and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Streptopelia turtur and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
144 taxa- Columba palumbus3 sites
- Accipiter gentilis2 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos2 sites
- Anser anser2 sites
- Bufo viridis2 sites
- Chloris chloris2 sites
- Coccothraustes coccothraustes2 sites
- Columba livia2 sites
- Corvidae2 sites
- Erithacus rubecula2 sites
- Falco subbuteo2 sites
- Oenanthe hispanica2 sites
- Otis tarda2 sites
- Passeriformes2 sites
- Phylloscopus2 sites
- Rallus aquaticus2 sites
- Turdus merula2 sites
- Accipiter nisus1 site
- Acipenser1 site
- Aegolius martae1 site
- Alectoris rufa1 site
- Anas1 site
- Anatidae1 site
- Anser albifrons1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Streptopelia turtur, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
4 references- The fossil bird associations from the early Middle Pleistocene of the Ragusa province (SE Sicily, Italy)1
- Faunal remains from Alcáçova de Santarém, Portugal1
- The Middle Pleistocene avifauna of Spinagallo Cave (Sicily, Italy): preliminary report1
- Biostratigraphy of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals in Corsica and the role of man in the Holocene faunal turnover1
Each of the 4 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Streptopelia turtur
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Charles J. Sharp
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Streptopelia turtur was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itStreptopelia through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)