Pica pica

The Eurasian magpie or common magpie is a resident breeding bird throughout the northern part of the Eurasian continent. It is one of several birds in the crow family (corvids) that are designated as magpies, and it belongs to the Holarctic radiation of "monochrome" magpies. In Europe, the term "magpie" is used by English speakers as a synonym for the Eurasian magpie; the only other species of magpie in Europe is the Iberian magpie, which is restricted to the Iberian Peninsula. Despite sharing a name and similar colouration, they are not closely related to the Australian magpie, which is an artamid, only sharing the same clade (Corvides).

Pica pica

Alexis Lours · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
Eurasian magpiePBDB
Sits inside
PicaPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Corvidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Corvidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Corvidae
Mass
9.9 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 762 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 774 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 1.8 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pleistocene — about 17 of 18 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 18 occurrences1.8–1.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.5–1.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–997 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences997 ka–920 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences920 ka–843 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences843 ka–767 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences767 ka–690 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences690 ka–613 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences613 ka–537 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences537 ka–460 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences460 ka–383 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences383 ka–307 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences307 ka–230 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences230 ka–153 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences153 ka–77 ka Mya — about 5 occurrences77 ka–0 Mya — about 8 occurrences774 ka11.7 ka2.3 Mya0 Mya

18 occurrences of Pica pica on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

18 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Pica pica and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Pica pica and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

579 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Pica pica, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

16 references

Each of the 18 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 4 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Pica pica

Credit
Alexis Lours
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
SEED.EA
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPica through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)