Mascarene Pigeons and Turtle-Doves

Nesoenas is a bird genus in the pigeon and dove family, Columbidae. It is often included with the typical turtle-doves in Streptopelia or the typical pigeons (Columba). By those who accepted it, it was usually treated as monotypic, containing only the pink pigeon (N. mayeri) of Mauritius.

Recent cladistic analysis of mtDNA cytochrome b, cytochrome c oxidase subunit I and NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2, as well as nuclear β-fibrinogen intron 7 sequence data, combined with a distinct morphology and behaviour, suggest that the genus is valid but not monotypic. Nesoenas should actually refer to the apparently monophyletic lineage of Columbidae from the Madagascar–Mascarenes region. Though most closely related to both Streptopelia and Columba, it cannot be unequivocally be considered a basal branch of either.