The treepies (known also as crypsirinines from the subfamily's name, Crypsirininae) comprise four closely related genera (''

Dendrocitta ''Dendrocitta'' is a genus of long-tailed passerine birds in the crow and jay family, Corvidae. They are resident in tropical South Asia, South and Southeast Asia. The generic name is derived from the Greek language, Greek words ''dendron'', mean ...

'', '' Crypsirina'', '' Temnurus'' and '' Platysmurus'') of long-tailed

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...

birds in the family

Corvidae Corvidae is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan Family (biology), family of Songbird, oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, Rook (bird), rooks, magpies, jackdaws, jays, treepies, choughs, and Nutcracker (bird), nutcrackers ...

. There are 12 species of treepie. Some treepies are similar to

magpie Magpies are birds of various species of the family Corvidae. Like other members of their family, they are widely considered to be intelligent creatures. The Eurasian magpie, for instance, is thought to rank among the world's most intelligent c ...

s. Most treepies are black, white, gray or brown. They are found in

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

. They live in tropical forests. They are highly arboreal and rarely come to the ground to feed.

Species

Following Ericson ''et al.'' (2005), the black magpies are placed with the treepies:

References

* Ericson, Per G. P.; Jansén, Anna-Lee; Johansson, Ulf S. & Ekman, Jan (2005): Inter-generic relationships of the crows, jays, magpies and allied groups (Aves: Corvidae) based on nucleotide sequence data. ''Journal of Avian Biology'' 36: 222–234
PDF fulltext

External links

Treepie videos
on the Internet Bird Collection {{Corvidae, 1 Corvidae Bird common names