The nutcrackers (''Nucifraga'') are a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

of three

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 appropriat ...

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 ...

, 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 colloquial English, they are known as the crow family or corvids. Cu ...

, related to the jays and

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 ...

s. The

''Nucifraga'' was introduced by the French zoologist

Mathurin Jacques Brisson Mathurin Jacques Brisson (; 30 April 1723 – 23 June 1806) was a French zoologist and natural philosopher. Brisson was born at Fontenay-le-Comte. The earlier part of his life was spent in the pursuit of natural history; his published wo ...

in 1760 with the

spotted nutcracker The spotted nutcracker, Eurasian nutcracker, or simply nutcracker (''Nucifraga caryocatactes'') is a passerine bird slightly larger than the Eurasian jay. It has a much larger bill and a slimmer looking head without any crest. The feathering over ...

(''Nucifraga caryocatactes'') as the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specim ...

. The genus name is a

New Latin New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...

translation of German ''Nussbrecher'', "nut-breaker".

Extant species

The genus contains three species: The most important food resources for these species are the seeds (

pine nut Pine nuts, also called piñón (), pinoli (), pignoli or chilgoza (), are the edible seeds of pines (family Pinaceae, genus ''Pinus''). According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, only 29 species provide edible nuts, while 20 are trad ...

s) of various

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family (biology), family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanic ...

s (''Pinus'' sp.), principally the cold-climate (far northern or high altitude) species of

white pine ''Pinus'', the pines, is a genus of approximately 111 extant tree and shrub species. The genus is currently split into two subgenera: subgenus ''Pinus'' (hard pines), and subgenus ''Strobus'' (soft pines). Each of the subgenera have been further ...

(''Pinus'' subgenus ''Strobus'') with large seeds: ''P. albicaulis, P. armandii, P. cembra, P. flexilis, P. koraiensis, P. parviflora, P. peuce, P. pumila, P. sibirica'' and ''P. wallichiana'', and also the pinyon and

lacebark pine ''Pinus bungeana'' (English: Bunge's pine or lacebark pine or white-barked pine; Chinese: 白皮松 Japanese: シロマツ, ) is a pine tree native to northeastern and central China. It is a slow-growing tree that can grow to heights of 15� ...

s. In some regions, where none of these pines occur, the seeds of

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfam ...

(''Picea'' sp.) and

hazelnuts The hazelnut is the fruit of the hazel tree and therefore includes any of the nuts deriving from species of the genus ''Corylus'', especially the nuts of the species ''Corylus avellana''. They are also known as cobnuts or filberts according ...

(''Corylus'' sp.) form an important part of the diet too. Their bills are specialized tools for extracting seeds from pine cones. Surplus seed is always stored for later use, and it is this genus that is responsible for the re-establishment of their favoured pines over large areas either burnt in

forest fire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identi ...

s or cleared by man. The nutcracker can store as many as 30,000 pine nuts in a single season, remembering the location of as many as 70% of their stash, even when buried in snow. Nutcrackers will cache seeds as far as away from parent plants, about eight times farther than related dispersers like jays and

s, and are thus important in re-establishing forests and responding to climate change. Various

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pa ...

s are also taken, including

bee Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfami ...

and

wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder ...

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. ...

e, and also birds' eggs and nestlings, and carrion if it is found. Nesting is always early in this genus, so as to make the best use of pine nuts stored the previous autumn. The nest is usually built high in a conifer. There are normally 2–4 eggs laid and incubated for 18 days. Both sexes feed the young which are usually fledged by about 23 days and stay with their parents for many months, following them to learn food storage techniques. None of the species are migratory, but they will leave their usual ranges if a cone crop failure causes a food shortage.

References

External links

Nutcracker videos
on the Internet Bird Collection {{Authority control *