Common Magpie ssp. galliae (1 Viewer)

[01101001]

Updates & Corrections – August 2018 – Clements Checklist

www.birds.cornell.edu

In 2018, Cornell's taxonomy dropped ssp. galliae citing Cramp and Perrins 1994:

In north-east France and locally in Belgium, rump relatively often blackish (e.g. dark grey or blackish in 5 of 15 birds: Bacmeister and Kleinschmidt 1920), and birds from north-east France therefore sometimes separated as galliae Kleinschmidt, 1917, but most birds inseperable from those of southern Sweden in both colour and size, and rump lighter elsewhere in France, becoming darker again only in Roussillon (foot of eastern Pyrénées), there grading into melanotos (Mayaud 1933b).

Mayaud 1933b seems to be about the avifauna of the Pyrenees (?), which would mean that the crucial fragment in bold about other parts of France and about Sweden appears to be unsourced. As of 2003, the subspecies' DNA hasn't been sampled according to https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1055790303000964.

Additional sampling of the geographically intervening subspecies, such as Pica pica galliae, P. p. bactriana, P. p. hemileucoptera, and P. p. leucoptera, would reveal more of the interesting evolutionary history of Palearctic magpie populations.

Is there any additional research supporting the treatment of galliae as a junior synonym of pica?

 

[njlarsen]

You probably should figure out what the original description was of galliae, it may not have been Mayaud. In the OD, the important thing is then the location of the specimen described. The name applied to the subspecies did seem to indicate a larger French distribution?
Niels

 

[l_raty]

Mayaud 1933b seems to be about the avifauna of the Pyrenees (?), which would mean that the crucial fragment in bold about other parts of France and about Sweden appears to be unsourced.

"Due to clinal character of variation in Eurasia, boundaries between races hard to define. In nominate pica from southern Sweden, rump mainly light grey, but white or whitish in 4 of 22 adult and 1st adult birds and dark grey in 1 (RMNH, ZFMK, ZMA), rarely blackish (Hartert and Steinbacher 1932-8); in Netherlands, white or whitish in 5% of 90 adult and 1st adult birds, dark grey to blackish in 26%; in mainland Italy, Balkans, and Greece, white or whitish in 6 of 20 birds, dark grey in 2 (RMNH, ZMA); in eastern Germany, 16.2% of 277 birds white, 14% black (Kelm and Eck 1985; see also Plumages); in southern Yugoslavia, mainly light grey, sometimes white, exceptionally black (Stresemann 1920); on Sicily, whitish, grey, or black (Eck 1984; RMNH, ZMA). In north-east France and locally in Belgium, rump relatively often blackish (e.g. dark grey or blackish in 5 of 15 birds: Bacmeister and Kleinschmidt 1920), and birds from north-east France therefore sometimes separated as galliae Kleinschmidt, 1917, but most birds inseperable from those of southern Sweden in both colour and size, and rump lighter elsewhere in France, becoming darker again only in Roussillon (foot of eastern Pyrénées), there grading into melanotos (Mayaud 1933b). In Iberian melanotos, rump black, occasionally with traces of grey or some (mainly) hidden white on feather-bases; amount of black on primary tips about similar to nominate pica (on average, 12.2 mm on p1, 8.0 on adult p10, 21.3 on juvenile p10: RMNH, ZFMK, ZMA); from south of Madrid, some birds have small bare bluish spot behind eye, and this spot present in many or all birds from Extremadura southwards (P S Hansen); such a spot occurs exceptionally in central Europe also (Bährmann 1958; Eck 1984)."

The source is Roselaar in Cramp & Perrins 1994.
(I.e., extensive primary research based on specimens in museum collections from all across Europe.)

Mayaud 1933b is this.

 

[01101001]

Thanks a lot. I guess the attribution eluded me (I did look at the whole text quoted above). Thanks for Mayaud's paper too.

I wonder what would the results be if the type locality of the nominate subspecies wasn't southern Sweden (or what if southern Sweden lies on the edge of some intergradation zone). Still, I guess the distribution of this trait is too scattershot in some areas, though I do dislike the way rump colouration and the presence of a bare spot behind the eye transcend subspecies boundaries.

EDIT: Locally, I keep looking, and I've yet to see any other rump pattern than that with extensive white, but, then, maybe Warsaw is in the range of fennorum (?).

https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1055790303000964-gr1.jpg

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Vladimir-Arkhipov/publication/317579723/figure/fig1/AS:614122295140366@1523429573705/Distribution-of-subspecies-of-Pica-pica-and-collecting-locations_W640.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Pica_pica_map.png

Anyway, thanks again, and to Niels as well.