A jay is a member of a number of species of medium-sized, usually colorful and noisy, passerine birds in the Crow family, Corvidae. The evolutionary relationships between the jays and the

magpie Magpies are birds of the Corvidae family. Like other members of their family, they are widely considered to be intelligent creatures. The Eurasian magpie, for instance, is thought to rank among the world's most intelligent creatures, and is one ...

s are rather complex. For example, the

Eurasian magpie The Eurasian magpie or common magpie (''Pica pica'') is a resident breeding bird throughout the northern part of the Eurasian continent. It is one of several birds in the crow family (corvids) designated magpies, and belongs to the Holarctic ra ...

seems more closely related to the

Eurasian jay The Eurasian jay (''Garrulus glandarius'') is a species of passerine bird in the crow family Corvidae. It has pinkish brown plumage with a black stripe on each side of a whitish throat, a bright blue panel on the upper wing and a black tail. The ...

than to the

East Asian East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea a ...

blue and green magpies, whereas the

blue jay The blue jay (''Cyanocitta cristata'') is a passerine bird in the family Corvidae, native to eastern North America. It lives in most of the eastern and central United States; some eastern populations may be migratory. Resident populations are a ...

is not closely related to either.

Systematics and species

Jays are not a

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...

group. Anatomical and molecular evidence indicates they can be divided into an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

and an

Old World The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by the ...

lineage (the latter including the

ground jay The ground jays or ground choughs belong to a distinct group of the passerine order of birds in the genus ''Podoces'' of the crow family Corvidae. They inhabit high altitude semi-desert areas from central Asia to Mongolia. Ground jays show adapt ...

s and the

piapiac The piapiac (''Ptilostomus afer'') is an African bird in the crow family, and is the only member of the genus ''Ptilostomus''. According to recent findings, it is most closely related to the Central Asian ground jays. Taxonomy In 1760 the French ...

), while the grey jays of the genus ''Perisoreus'' form a group of their own.http://www.nrm.se/download/18.4e32c81078a8d9249800021299/Corvidae%5B1%5D.pdf PDF fulltext The

black magpie ''Platysmurus'' is a genus of treepie in the family Corvidae Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers. In coll ...

s, formerly believed to be related to jays, are classified as treepies.

Old World ("brown") jays

Grey jays

American jays

In culture

Slang

The word ''jay'' has an archaic meaning in American slang meaning a person who chatters impertinently. The term '' jaywalking'' was coined in 1915 to label persons crossing a busy street carelessly and becoming a traffic hazard. The term began to imply recklessness or impertinent behavior as the convention became established. In January 2014, Canadian author

Robert Joseph Greene Robert Joseph Greene (born January 11, 1973) is a Canadian author of gay romance fiction, best known for ''The Gay Icon Classics of the World'', a collection of gay-themed love stories from over 12 different countries. Each story represents a cul ...

embarked on a lobbying campaign among ornithologists in Europe and North America to get Merriam-Websters Dictionary to have a "Jabber of Jays" as an official term under bird groups.

References

External links

Jay videos
on the Internet Bird Collection * {{Corvidae Corvidae Jays Bird common names