A jay is a member of a number of

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of medium-sized, usually colorful and noisy,

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s in the

Crow A crow is a bird of the genus '' Corvus'', or more broadly a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. Crows are generally black in colour. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not pinned scientifica ...

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Corvidae Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers. In colloquial English, they are known as the crow family or corvids. Cu ...

. The evolutionary relationships between the jays and the magpies are rather complex. For example, the Eurasian magpie seems more closely related to the Eurasian jay than to the East Asian

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...

and green magpies, whereas the blue jay is not closely related to either.

Systematics and species

Jays are not a monophyletic group. Anatomical and molecular evidence indicates they can be divided into an American and an Old World lineage (the latter including the ground jays 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 Fren ...

), 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 magpies, formerly believed to be related to jays, are classified as

treepie The treepies (known also as crypsirinines from the subfamily's name, ''Crypsirininae'') comprise four closely related genera (''Dendrocitta, Crypsirina, Temnurus'' and ''Platysmurus'') of long-tailed passerine birds in the family Corvidae. There ...

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 Jaywalking is the act of pedestrians walking in or crossing a roadway that has traffic, other than at a designated crossing point, or otherwise, in disregard of traffic rules. The term originated in the United States as a derivation of the phras ...

'' 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 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