European Magpie
| Eurasian magpie | |
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| Nominate subspecies in Toulouse, France |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Corvidae |
| Genus: | Pica |
| Species: | P. pica |
| Binomial name | |
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Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) |
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| Subspecies | |
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See text |
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| Subspecies leucoptera melanotos pica fennorum asirensis bactriana hemileucoptera serica bottanensis camtschatica mauritanica |
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See text
The Eurasian magpie or common magpie (Pica pica) is a resident breeding bird throughout Europe, much of Asia and northwest Africa. It is one of several birds in the crow family designated magpies, and belongs to the Holarctic radiation of "monochrome" magpies. In Europe, "magpie" is used by English speakers as a synonym for the European magpie: the only other magpie in Europe is the Iberian magpie (Cyanopica cooki), which is limited to the Iberian peninsula.
The Eurasian magpie is one of the most intelligent birds, and it is believed to be one of the most intelligent of all non-human animals. The expansion of its nidopallium is approximately the same in its relative size as the brain of chimpanzees, orangutans and humans.
The magpie was described and illustrated by Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner in his Historiae animalium of 1555. In 1758 Linnaeus included the species in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Corvus pica. The magpie was moved to a separate genus Pica by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760.Pica is the Classical Latin word for this magpie.
The Eurasian magpie is almost identical in appearance to the North American black-billed magpie (Pica hudsonia) and at one time the two races were considered to be conspecific. In 2000, the American Ornithologists' Union decided to treat the black-billed magpie as a separate species based on studies of the vocalization and behaviour that indicated that the black-billed magpie was closer to the yellow-billed magpie (Pica nuttalli) than to the Eurasian magpie.
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