The Eurasian magpie or common magpie (Pica pica) is a resident breeding bird throughout the northern part of the Eurasian continent. It is one of several birds in the crow family (corvids) designated magpies, and belongs to the Holarctic radiation of "monochrome" magpies. In Europe, "magpie" is used by English speakers as a synonym for the Eurasian magpie: the only other magpie in Europe is the Iberian magpie (Cyanopica cooki), which is limited to the Iberian Peninsula. Despite having a shared name and close appearance, it is not closely related to the Australian Magpie.
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, gorillas, orangutans and humans. It is the only bird known to pass the mirror test, along with very few other non-avian species.
Taxonomy and systematics
The magpie was described and illustrated by Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner 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 species 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.
The gradual clinal variation over the large geographic range and the intergradation of the different subspecies means that the geographical limits, and acceptance of the various subspecies, vary between authorities. The International Ornithological Congress recognises six subspecies (a seventh, P. p. hemileucoptera, is included in P. p. bactriana): P. p. fennorum – Lönnberg, 1927: northern Scandinavia and northwest Russia P. p. pica – (Linnaeus, 1758): British Isles and southern Scandinavia east to Russia, south to Mediterranean, including most islands P. p. melanotos – A.E. Brehm, 1857: Iberian Peninsula P. p. bactriana – Bonaparte, 1850: Siberia east to Lake Baikal, south to Caucasus, Iraq, Iran, Central Asia and Pakistan P. p. leucoptera – Gould, 1862: southeast Russia and northeast China P. p. camtschatica – Stejneger, 1884: northern Sea of Okhotsk, and Kamchatka Peninsula in Russian Far East
Others now considered as distinct species: P. mauritanica – Malherbe, 1845: North Africa (Morocco, northern Algeria and Tunisia) (now considered a separate species, the Maghreb magpie) P. asirensis – Bates, 1936: southwest Saudi Arabia (now considered a separate species, the Asir magpie) P. serica – Gould, 1845: east and south China, Taiwan, north Myanmar, north Laos and north Vietnam (now considered a separate species, the Oriental magpie) P. bottanensis – Delessert, 1840: west central China (now considered a separate species, the black-rumped magpie)
A study using both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA found that magpies in eastern and northeastern China are genetically very similar to each other, but differ from those in northwestern China and Spain.
Etymology
Magpies were originally known as simply "pies". This is hypothesized to derive from a Proto-Indo-European root *(s)peyk- meaning "pointed", in reference to the beak or perhaps the tail (cf. woodpecker). The prefix "mag" dates from the 16th century and comes from the short form of the given name Margaret, which was once used to mean women in general (as Joe or Jack is used for men today); the pie's call was considered to sound like the idle chattering of a woman, and so it came to be called the "Mag pie". "Pie" as a term for the bird dates to the 13th century, and the word "pied", first recorded in 1552, became applied to other birds that resembled the magpie in having black-and-white plumage.