Chordates • Earth.com

Yellow-billed magpie

(Pica nuttalli)

galery

Description

The yellow-billed magpie (Pica nuttalli), also known as the California magpie, is a large bird in the crow family that is restricted to the U.S. state of California. It inhabits the Central Valley and the adjacent chaparral foothills and mountains. Apart from its having a yellow bill and a yellow streak around the eye, it is virtually identical to the black-billed magpie (Pica hudsonia) found in much of the rest of North America. The scientific name commemorates the English naturalist Thomas Nuttall. mtDNA sequence analysis indicates a close relationship between the yellow-billed magpie and the black-billed magpie, rather than between the outwardly very similar black-billed and European magpies (P. pica); the two American forms could be considered as one species. The Korean subspecies of the European magpie (P. p. sericea) is more distantly related to all other (including North American) forms judging from the molecular evidence, and thus, either the North American forms are maintained as specifically distinct and the Korean (and possibly related) subspecies are also elevated to species status, or all magpies are considered to be subspecies of a single species, Pica pica. Combining fossil evidence and paleobiogeographical considerations with the molecular data indicates that the yellow-billed magpie's ancestors became isolated in California quite soon after the ancestral magpies colonized North America (which probably happened some 3–4 mya) due to early ice ages and the ongoing uplift of the Sierra Nevada, but that during interglacials there occurred some gene flow between the yellow- and black-billed magpies until reproductive isolation was fully achieved in the Pleistocene. The yellow-billed magpie is adapted to the hot summers of California's Central Valley and experiences less heat stress than the black-billed magpie. The yellow-billed magpie is gregarious and roosts communally. There may be a cluster of communal roosts in one general area made up of a central roost containing many birds and several outlying roosts with fewer. Yellow-billed magpie flocks are known to engage in funeral-like behavior for their dead. When a magpie dies, a gathering of them congregates around the deceased bird where they call out loudly for 10-15 minutes. The yellow-billed magpie prefers groves of tall trees along rivers and near open areas, though in some cities they have begun to nest in vacant lots and other weedy places.

Taxonomic tree:

Domain:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum:
Class: Aves
Order:Passeriformes
Family:Corvidae
Genus:Pica
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