Black jay (genus)
| Bad luck jay | ||||||||||||
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Unglückshäher ( Perisoreus infaustus ) in Kittilä |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Perisoreus | ||||||||||||
| Bonaparte , 1831 |
The bad luck jays ( Perisoreus ) are a genus of corvids (Corvidae). It includes three species that are native to Eurasia and North America. Black jays are relatively small representatives of the corvids and are reminiscent of titmice in their appearance , which is why they are also called titjays in older literature . They inhabit boreal and montane coniferous forests and feed mainly on seeds and insects.
Blue jays show little shyness when dealing with humans and are known in both Scandinavia and North America for visiting human settlements and camps in order to find food. Species of the genus were reputed both in Europe and among the North American Indians to bring bad luck in various ways.
features
Blue jays are small corvids that resemble titmice in appearance . Their chisel-shaped beak is dainty and short compared to other corvids, but relatively broad.
The plumage color of the genus ranges from black to brown and gray to white, only the bad luck jay ( P. infaustus ) has reddish tail, cover and abdominal plumage . The titmouse ( P. canadensis ) shows variable gray, black and white tones. The Sichuan jay ( P. internigrans ) is similar in plumage to the bad luck jay , but is darker and has no red feathers. The beak is about half covered with broad, stiff beak bristles. All three species have rounded to slightly stepped tail feathers.
All three Perisoreus TYPES have strongly developed sublingual salivary glands. They enable the birds to produce particularly thick saliva, which is needed when storing food.
distribution
The distribution area of the blue jay includes the boreal and continental Eurasia north of the steppe zone to the border of the tundra . In North America it extends over the forested regions of Alaska and Canada eastwards to Newfoundland and in the south along the coast and over the Rocky Mountains . A relic occurrence exists with the Sichuan jay ( P. internigrans ) on the extreme western edge of the Tibetan plateau .
habitat
Blue jays live mainly in coniferous forests in boreal and montane regions, but occasionally also occur in boreal mixed forests.
nutrition
The diet of the blue jays consists mainly of seeds and insects, which they pick up in the canopy of conifers in spring and summer. However, none of the species is averse to other food sources, for example titmouse and bad luck jays can be fed with bread by people without being shy. The food collected over the year is mixed with tough saliva by the bad luck tugs and stuck firmly in the bark furrows of trees. In autumn and winter, the birds mainly feed on these supplies, since other food is usually not available.
Systematics and taxonomy
The author of the genus Perisoreus is Charles Lucien Bonaparte , who re-established it in 1833 in a footnote in his catalog of the animal species known at the time. In 1840 George Robert Gray subsequently specified the titmouse as a type . Perisoreus is derived from the Greek and means something like "I pile up". The name refers to the pronounced collecting behavior of the bad jays and takes precedence over the synonym Cractes ( Billberg , 1828 ) , which was used at times .
External system
The blue jays are relatively isolated within the corvids. Its sister taxon are the blue star ( Cyanopica ), which were formerly distributed in the Palearctic and are now found in two relic areas on the Iberian Peninsula and in East Asia . The clade formed by blue stars and bad luck tugs is the result of a more recent radiation . They are contrasted by the new world jay and the old world species of Africa and the temperate Palearctic.
| Corvids (Corvidae) |
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Internal system
The genus of the unlucky jay is divided into an old-world and a new-world branch.
The titmouse ( P. canadensis ) is opposed to a clade formed by the Sichuan jay ( P. internigrans ) and the bad luck jay ( P. infaustus ). Old and New World unlucky jays parted around 1.5 million years ago when the Bering Strait silted up and formed a bridge overgrown with coniferous forests to North America.
| Unglückshäher ( Perisoreus ) |
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literature
- Charles Lucien Bonaparte: Saggio di una distribizione metodica degli animali vertebrati. In: Giornale Arcadico di Scienze Lettere et Arti 49, 1833. pp. 3-77.
- Per GP Ericson, Anna-Lee Jansen, Ulf S. Johansson, Jan Ekman: Inter-generic Relationships of the Crows, Jays, Magpies and Allied Groups (Aves: Corvidae) Based on Nucleotide Sequence Data . In: Journal of Avian Biology 36, 2005. pp. 222-234.
- Urs N. Glutz von Blotzheim, KM Bauer : Handbook of the birds of Central Europe. Volume 13 / III: Passeriformes. 4th part. AULA-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1993, ISBN 3-89104-460-7 .
- Derek Goodwin : Crows of the World. 2nd Edition. The British Museum (Natural History) , London 1986, ISBN 0-565-00979-6 .
- George Robert Gray: A List of the Genera of Birds . London 1840.
- Steve Madge , Hilary Burn: Crows & Jays. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1994, ISBN 0-691-08883-7 .
- Joseph del Hoyo, Andrew Elliot, David Christie (Eds.): Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 14: Bush-shrikes To Old World Sparrows. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 2009. ISBN 978-84-96553-50-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Bonaparte 1833 , p. 42.
- ↑ a b Glutz von Blotzheim & Bauer 1993 , p. 1435.
- ↑ a b c Goodwin 1986 , pp. 214-2166.
- ↑ Madge & Burn 1994 , p. 20.
- ↑ Madge & Burn 1994 , pp. 100-102.
- ↑ del Hoyo et al. 2009 , p. 524.
- ↑ Gray 1840 , p. 37.
- ↑ a b Ericson et al. 2005 , p. 232.
- ↑ del Hoyo et al. 2009 , p. 497.