FIRST SIGHTING OF LAUGHING DOVE STREPTOPELIA SENEGALENSIS IN KARGIL DISTRICT OF LADAKH, INDIAN TRANS-HIMALAYA

摘要

The family Columbidae, represented by doves and pigeons, is distributed in almost all biogeographic regions of the world (Gibbs et al. 2001). The distributional range of Laughing Dove Streptopelia senegalensis includes Arabia, Iran, Kazakhstan, China,Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. Five subspecies of Laughing Dove are known to occur, i.e., S. s. phoenicophila (Hartert 1916) in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia; S. s. aegyptiaca (Latham 1790) in the Nile valley; S. s. sokotrae (Grant 1914) in Socotra; S. s. senegalensis (Linnaeus 1766) in Sub-Saharan Africa and west Arabia; and S. s. cambayensis (Gmelin 1789) in Arabia, Iran, and some south Asian countries (del Hoyo et al. 1997).The subspecies Streptopelia senegalensis cambayensis (Gmelin 1789) occurs throughout the Indian subcontinent except parts of the Himalaya, north-east India, and Sri Lanka (Grimmett et al. 1999). In Himalaya, the presence of the species was reported up toa height of 1,000 m only (Ali and Ripley 1981). However, Pflster (2001) recorded its occurrence at an elevation of 4,350 m, which is the highest till date. The species is categorized as a Schedule IV species under the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 as well as the Jammu & Kashmir Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1978, and is listed as Least Concern according to IUCN Red Data list (IUCN 2014).