Red-billed Blue Magpie

About the Red-billed Blue Magpie

The red-billed blue magpie (Urocissa erythroryncha) is a species of bird (magpie) in the crow family, Corvidae. It is about the same size as the Eurasian magpie, but has a much longer tail, one of the longest of any corvid. It is 65–68 cm (25.5–27 in) long and weighs 196–232 g (6.9–8.2 oz).

The red-billed blue magpie was described by French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1775 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name, but in 1783, Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Corvus erythrorynchus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The specimen described by Buffon had come from China, but the type location was restricted to Canton by Hugh Birckhead in 1937. The red-billed blue magpie is now one of five species placed in the genus Urocissa that was introduced by German ornithologist Jean Cabanis in 1850. The name of the genus... Wikipedia →