Common Green Magpie

Open encyclopedia reference

The common green magpie (Cissa chinensis) is a member of the crow family, roughly the size of the Eurasian jay or slightly smaller. In the wild, specimens are usually a bright and lush green in colour (which often fades to turquoise in captivity or with poor diet as the pigment is carotenoid-based), slightly lighter on the underside and have a thick black stripe from the bill through the eyes to the nape. Compared to that of the other members of its genus, the white-tipped tail is quite long. This all contrasts vividly with the red fleshy eye rims, bill and legs. The wings are reddish maroon. It is found from the lower Himalayas in north eastern India in a broad south easterly band down into central Thailand, Malaysia, Sumatra and northwestern Borneo in evergreen forest (including bamboo forest), clearings and scrub. This bird seeks food both on the ground and in the canopy of the trees, and takes a very high percentage of animal prey from countless invertebrates, small reptiles, mammals and young birds and eggs.

Wikipedia contributors, Common green magpie; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T08:17:26.842328+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Cissa chinensis (Boddaert, 1783)

Name authority

(Boddaert, 1783)

Common name

Common Green Magpie

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Corvidae

Genus

Cissa

Extinction status

Recorded extant

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. megaclassTetrapoda
8. classAves
9. orderPasseriformes
10. familyCorvidae Leach, 1820
11. genusCissa F. Boie, 1826
12. speciesCissa chinensis (Boddaert, 1783)

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Cissa. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 101 records assigned to Corvidae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=559301 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:5YX4P. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.