Australian magpie
The Australian magpie is a black and white passerine bird native to Australia and southern New Guinea, and introduced to New Zealand, and the Fijian island of Taveuni. Although once considered to be three separate species, it is now considered to be one, with nine recognised subspecies. A member of the Artamidae, the Australian magpie is placed in its own genus Gymnorhina and is most closely related to the black butcherbird. It is not closely related to the Eurasian magpie, which is a corvid.
The adult Australian magpie is a fairly robust bird ranging from in length, with black and white plumage, gold brown eyes and a solid wedge-shaped bluish-white and black bill. The male and female are similar in appearance, but can be distinguished by differences in back markings. The male has pure white feathers on the back of the head where the female has white blending to grey feathers. With its long legs, the Australian magpie walks rather than waddles or hops and spends much time on the ground.
Described as one of Australia's most accomplished songbirds, the Australian magpie has an array of complex vocalisations. It is omnivorous, with the bulk of its varied diet made up of invertebrates. It is generally sedentary and territorial throughout its range. Common and widespread, it has adapted well to human habitation and is a familiar bird of parks, gardens and farmland in Australia and New Guinea. This species is commonly fed by households around Australia, but in spring a small minority of breeding magpies become aggressive, swooping and attacking those who approach their nests. Research has shown that magpies can recognise at least 100 different people, and may be less likely to swoop individuals they have befriended.
Over 1,000 Australian magpies were introduced into New Zealand from 1864 to 1874, but were subsequently deemed to be displacing native birds and are now treated as a pest species. Introductions also occurred in the Solomon Islands and Fiji, where the birds are not considered an invasive species. The Australian magpie is the mascot of several Australian and New Zealand sporting teams, including the Collingwood Magpies, the Western Suburbs Magpies, Port Adelaide Magpies and, in New Zealand, the Hawke's Bay Magpies.
Taxonomy and nomenclature
The Australian magpie was first described in the scientific literature by English ornithologist John Latham in 1801 as Coracias tibicen, the type collected in the Port Jackson region. Its specific epithet is derived from the ancient Greek "gumnos" combined with "rhis" or "rhinos" , alluding to their uncovered and bare nostrils and the Latin tibicen "flute-player" or "piper" in reference to the bird's melodious call.An early recorded vernacular name is piping poller, written on a painting by Thomas Watling, one of a group known collectively as the Port Jackson Painter, some time between 1788 and 1792. Other names used include piping crow-shrike, piping shrike, piper, maggie, flute-bird and organ-bird. The term bell-magpie was proposed to help distinguish it from corvid magpies but failed to gain wide acceptance.
Tarra-won-nang, or djarrawunang, wibung, and marriyang were names used by the local Eora and Darug inhabitants of the Sydney Basin. Booroogong and garoogong were Wiradjuri words and Victorian terms included carrak, kuruk, kiri and kurikari. Among the Kamilaroi, it is burrugaabu, galalu, or guluu. In Western Australia it is known as warndurla among the Yindjibarndi people of the central and western Pilbara, and koorlbardi amongst the south west Noongar peoples. In South Australia, where it is the State emblem, it is the kurraka, murru, urrakurli, goora, konlarru and tuwal.
The bird was named for its similarity in colouration to the Eurasian magpie, because it was a common practice for early European settlers to name plants and animals after European counterparts. However, the Eurasian magpie is a member of the Corvidae, while its Australian counterpart is placed in the family Artamidae. The affinity of the Australian magpie with butcherbirds and currawongs was recognised early, and John Albert Leach placed the three genera in the family Cracticidae in 1914, after he had studied their musculature. American ornithologists Charles Sibley and Jon Ahlquist recognised the close relationship between woodswallows and the butcherbirds in 1985, and combined them into a Cracticini clade, in the Artamidae.
The Australian magpie is placed in its own monotypic genus Gymnorhina, which was introduced by the English zoologist George Robert Gray in 1840. The name of the genus is from the Ancient Greek gumnos for "naked" or "bare" and rhis, rhinos "nostrils". Some authorities such as Glen Storr in 1952 and Leslie Christidis and Walter Boles in their 2008 checklist, have placed the Australian magpie in the butcherbird genus Cracticus, arguing that its adaptation to ground-living is not enough to consider it a separate genus.
A molecular genetic study published in 2013 showed that the Australian magpie is a sister taxon to the black butcherbird, and that the two species are in turn sister to a clade that includes the other butcherbirds in the genus Cracticus. The ancestor to the two species is thought to have split from the other butcherbirds between 8.3 and 4.2 million years ago, during the late Miocene to early Pliocene, while the two species themselves diverged sometime during the Pliocene.
The Australian magpie was subdivided into three species in the literature for much of the twentieth century: the black-backed magpie, the white-backed magpie, and the western magpie. They were later noted to hybridise readily where their territories crossed, with hybrid grey or striped-backed magpies being quite common. They were reclassified as one species by Julian Ford in 1969, and most recent authors have followed suit.
Subspecies
There are currently thought to be nine subspecies of the Australian magpie, although there are large zones of overlap with intermediate forms between the taxa. There is a tendency for birds to become larger with increasing latitude, the southern subspecies being larger than those further north, except the Tasmanian form which is small. The original form, known as the black-backed magpie and classified as Gymnorhina tibicen, has been split into four black-backed races:- G. tibicen tibicen, the nominate form, is a large subspecies found in southeastern Queensland, from the vicinity of Moreton Bay through eastern New South Wales to Moruya, New South Wales almost to the Victorian border. It is coastal or near-coastal and is restricted to east of the Great Dividing Range.
- G. tibicen terraereginae, found from Cape York and the Gulf Country southwards across Queensland to the coast between Halifax Bay in the north and south to the Mary River, and central and western New South Wales and into northern South Australia, is a small to medium-sized subspecies. The plumage is the same as that of subspecies tibicen, although the female has a shorter black tip to the tail. The wings and tarsus are shorter and the bill proportionally longer. It was originally described by Gregory Mathews in 1912, its subspecies name a Latin translation, terra "land" reginae "queen's" of "Queensland". Hybridisation with the large white-backed subspecies tyrannica occurs in northern Victoria and southeastern New South Wales; intermediate forms have black bands of varying sizes in white-backed area. Three-way hybridisation occurs between Bega and Batemans Bay on the New South Wales south coast.
- G. tibicen eylandtensis, the Top End magpie, is found from the Kimberley in northern Western Australia, across the Northern Territory through Arnhem Land and Groote Eylandt and into the Gulf Country. It is a small subspecies with a long and thinner bill, with birds of Groote Eylandt possibly even smaller than mainland birds. It has a narrow black terminal tailband, and a narrow black band; the male has a large white nape, the female pale grey. This form was initially described by H. L. White in 1922. It intergrades with subspecies terraereginae southeast of the Gulf of Carpentaria.
- G. tibicen longirostris, the long-billed magpie, is found across northern Western Australia, from Shark Bay into the Pilbara. Named in 1903 by Alex Milligan, it is a medium-sized subspecies with a long thin bill. Milligan speculated the bill may have been adapted for the local conditions, slim fare meaning the birds had to pick at dangerous scorpions and spiders. There is a broad area of hybridisation with the western dorsalis in southern central Western Australia from Shark Bay south to the Murchison River and east to the Great Victoria Desert.
- G. tibicen tyrannica, a very large white-backed form found from Twofold Bay on the New South Wales far south coast, across southern Victoria south of the Great Dividing Range through to the Coorong in southeastern South Australia. It was first described by Schodde and Mason in 1999. It has a broad black tail band.
- G. tibicen telonocua, found from Cowell south into the Eyre and Yorke Peninsulas in southern South Australia, as well as the southwestern Gawler Ranges. Described by Schodde and Mason in 1999, its subspecific name is an anagram of leuconota "white-backed". It is very similar to tyrannica, differing in having a shorter wing and being lighter and smaller overall. The bill is relatively short compared with other magpie subspecies. Intermediate forms are found in the Mount Lofty Ranges and on Kangaroo Island.
- G. tibicen hypoleuca now refers to a small white-backed subspecies with a short compact bill and short wings, found on King and Flinders Islands, as well as Tasmania.
- The western magpie, G. tibicen dorsalis was originally described as a separate species by A. J. Campbell in 1895 and is found in the fertile south-west corner of Western Australia. The adult male has a white back and most closely resembles subspecies telonocua, though it is a little larger with a longer bill and the black tip of its tail plumage is narrower. The female is unusual in that it has a scalloped black or brownish-black mantle and back; the dark feathers there are edged with white. This area appears a more uniform black as the plumage ages and the edges are worn away. Both sexes have black thighs.
- The New Guinean magpie, G. tibicen papuana, is a little-known subspecies found in southern New Guinea. The adult male has a mostly white back with a narrow black stripe, and the female a blackish back; the black feathers here are tipped with white similar to subspecies dorsalis. It has a long deep bill resembling that of subspecies longirostris. Genetically it is closely related to a western lineage of Australian magpies comprising subspecies dorsalis, longirostris and eylandtensis, suggesting their ancestors occupied in savannah country that was a land bridge between New Guinea and Australia and was submerged around 16,500 years ago.