The Iberian magpie (''Cyanopica cooki'') is a

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in the

crow family 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 ...

. It is long and similar in overall shape to the

Eurasian magpie 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 r ...

(''Pica pica'') but is slenderer with proportionately smaller legs and bill. It belongs to the genus '' Cyanopica''.

Taxonomy

The Iberian magpie was formally described in 1850 by the French naturalist

Charles Lucien Bonaparte Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, 2nd Prince of Canino and Musignano (24 May 1803 – 29 July 1857) was a French naturalist and ornithology, ornithologist, and a nephew of Napoleon. Lucien and his wife had twelve children, including Cardinal ...

based on a specimen that had been collected by Samuel Edward Cook in Spain. Bonaparte coined the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...

''Cyanopica cooki'', to replace the preoccupied ''Pica cyanea''. The specific epithet was chosen to honour the collector. The type locality was restricted to Madrid by Harry Forbes Witherby in 1923. The species is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

: no

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

are recognised. This taxon was formerly treated as

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organism ...

with the

azure-winged magpie The azure-winged magpie (''Cyanopica cyanus'') is a bird in the crow family. It is 31–35 cm long and similar in overall shape to the Eurasian magpie (''Pica pica'') but is more slender with proportionately smaller legs and bill. It belong ...

(''C. cyana''), but this population is 5,400 miles (9,000 km) away from those in eastern Asia. Genetic analysis has suggested that Iberian and azure-winged magpies are distinct species. Other

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often con ...

s include Iberian azure-winged magpie, Cook's azure-winged magpie, and Spanish azure-winged magpie.

Description

It has a glossy black top to the head and a white throat. The underparts and the back are a light grey-fawn in colour with the wings and the

feather Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates and an exa ...

s of the long (16–20 cm) tail are an azure blue.

Distribution and habitat

The Iberian magpie occurs in southwestern and central parts of the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

, in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

. However, it can sometimes be spotted also in south-western France, and recently its presence has been reported even in north-western Italy. It inhabits various types of

conifer Conifers () are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a sin ...

ous (mainly

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

) and

broadleaf forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological functio ...

, including parks and gardens in the eastern populations.

Behaviour and ecology

Often Iberian magpies find food as a family group or several groups making flocks of up to 70 birds. The largest groups congregate after the breeding season and throughout the winter months. Their diet consists mainly of

acorn The acorn is the nut (fruit), nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'', ''Notholithocarpus'' and ''Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains a seedling surrounded by two cotyledons (seedling leaves), en ...

s (

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

seeds) and

pine nut Pine nuts, also called piñón (), pinoli (), or pignoli, are the edible seeds of pines (family Pinaceae, genus ''Pinus''). According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, only 29 species provide edible nuts, while 20 are traded locall ...

s, extensively supplemented by

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

s and their larvae, soft

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...

s and berries, and also human-provided scraps in parks and towns. This species usually nests in loose, open colonies with a single nest in each

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

, same mean clutch size is 6.2 eggs, but only 32% of nesting attempts are successful, with an average 5.1 young fledged.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q12256020 Iberian magpie Birds of Southern Europe Fauna of the Iberian Peninsula Iberian magpie Iberian magpie