Animal · Germany, France, Poland
Eurasian magpie
Pica pica — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The Eurasian magpie is a black and white crow with a very long tail that shimmers green and blue when the light catches it. It is one of the few animals that recognise themselves in a mirror.
Picture credit: Zeynel Cebeci (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Magnus Hagdorn (CC BY-SA 2.0) · Annatsach (CC BY 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the Eurasian magpie live?
Home: Fields with hedges, parks and gardens across Eurasia.
In the wild it lives in these countries: Germany, France, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, China.
Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.
The short profile
Fully grown: 44-46 cm long, half of it tail, wingspan 52-62 cm. It weighs about 0.22 kilograms. On the menu: both plants and meat.
The story behind it
Magpies belong to the crow family, the cleverest birds we know. In a famous experiment a small coloured mark was stuck under a magpie's beak; when the bird saw itself in a mirror, it tried to scratch the mark off its own throat, a test that very few animals pass. Magpies hide food and remember the hiding places for weeks, and they build one of the most careful nests in Europe: a bowl of mud and twigs with a roof of thorny sticks on top, so that crows cannot reach the eggs. People long said magpies steal shiny things, but when researchers offered wild magpies shiny objects, most birds avoided them. A magpie that survives its first year often lives four or five years more.
Find it on the globe
Eurasian magpie is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
Do magpies really steal shiny things?
Probably not. When researchers put shiny rings and screws near wild magpies, most birds kept their distance instead of grabbing them. The old story seems to come from tales, not from the birds.
How clever is a magpie?
Clever enough to recognise itself in a mirror, which only a handful of animals manage. Magpies also plan ahead, hide food for later and remember for weeks where each store lies.
Why does a magpie nest have a roof?
The roof of thorny twigs keeps crows and other egg thieves out. Inside sits a bowl lined with mud and fine roots, so the eggs lie dry and safe even in a storm.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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