Maghreb Magpie

The Maghreb magpie (Pica mauritanica) is a species of magpie in the genus Pica found in North Africa from Morocco east to Tunisia, at altitudes from sea level up to 2,300 metres altitude. It can be distinguished from the Eurasian magpie by the patch of blue skin behind its eye, the narrower white belly, the shorter wings, and the longer tail. == Taxonomy == Maghreb magpie was first described as a species in 1845, a status retained by Richard Bowdler Sharpe in 1877 despite his reducing multiple other Pica names to synonyms of the Eurasian magpie, and by Joseph Whitaker in his 1905 The Birds of Tunisia. It was however reduced to a subspecies of the Eurasian magpie later in the 20th century. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2018 found that the Maghreb magpie was basal in the genus Pica, sister to a clade containing all of the other members of the genus; this leading to its restoration as a separate species by the IOC World Bird List in version 8.2 in July 2018. == Description == The Maghreb magpie is around 48 cm long, similar in plumage to the widespread Eurasian magpie, but with the distinct patch of…