Dendrocitta

Walking Tree Elster ( Dendrocitta vagabunda ) in Kozhikode

The tree magpies ( Dendrocitta ) are a genus of corvids ( Corvidae ). The genus includes seven species, all of which occur in South East Asia. Tree magpies live in forests or semi-open landscapes and spend most of the day in the branches of trees, where they feed on their fruits and flowers. In addition, they also eat small vertebrates, insects and carrion.

3.1 Literature
3.2 External links
3.3 Notes and references

Features

Tree magpies are medium large black birds with stocky body and long to very long tails. They have all short and strong, curved beaks, and relatively short, thin legs. The smallest member of the genus, the Andamanenbaumelster (D. baylei ) measures from head to tail 32 cm and weighs 90-130 g, the Walking Tree Elster has the largest type a head -to-tail length of 46-50 cm with a weight of 90 -130 g

The color spectrum of tree Magpie plumage is restricted to a limited range of colors and drawings, which occur in varying degrees in all species of the genus. Face and throat are usually fed dyed black or brown. An exception is the Borneo tree Elster (D. cinerascens ), in which only the forehead and eyebrows are black. Back of the head and neck are gray except for the Andamanenbaumelster and hiking tree magpie or white. In some species, these gray coloration ranges down to the upper forehead and on the chest or back, while others only up to the back of the head and the lateral neck. The back and shoulders are differently colored strongly red, the belly is white, gray, ocher or brown. The under tail-coverts are yellowish and reddish in most species only when walking tree magpie. All tree magpies have cover and black primaries, some species have a white spot at the base of the primaries. Except for the walking tree magpie all tree Magpies have black secondaries. The coverts are in walking tree Elster white, gray in the mask tree Elster (D. frontalis). The tail consists of twelve feathers greatly stepped. With the mask and the Andamanenbaumelster it is completely black. In all other species only the tips of the tail feathers are dark, their base, however, is gray. Beak, cere and legs are dark gray in all tree magpies, the color of the iris ranges from dark brown and red.

Systematics and Taxonomy

History of Research

The scientific name for the tree magpies, Dendrocitta, is composed of the Greek words dendron ( δένδρον ) for tree and kitta ( κίττα ), a name for the magpie ( Pica pica ). Author of genus is John Gould, who published their first description in 1833 in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. Gould divided the genus from which the rights magpies ( Pica ), in which the present-day tree magpies were asked at that time. He attributed this to the compared to the genuine magpies rather weak legs of the tree magpies. At the same time he demarcated the genre of the closely related Rakettschwanzelstern ( Crypsirina ), pointing to the slightly different beak morphology. As type species he laid down the white-bellied tree Elster (D. leucogastra ).

Outer systematics

Mountain Crow ( pyrrhocorax )

Tree magpies ( Dendrocitta )

Rakettschwanzelstern ( Crypsirina )

Mourning magpies ( Platysmurus )

Head tail magpies ( temnurus )

Rest of corvids

The tree magpies are part of an early radiation of corvids in Southeast Asia, the result of addition of the genus Dendrocitta the mountain crows ( pyrrhocorax ), the Rakettschwanzelstern ( Crypsirina ), the grief Elster ( Platysmurus leucopterus ) and the head tail Elster ( temnurus temnurus ) are. All five species are native to Southeast Asia, where the mountain Crows have also colonized the rest of the Palearctic. The tree magpies are doing in the basal group of genera occurring exclusively in Southeast Asia, while the mountain crows form the sister taxon to all other species.