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Crows (Corvidae)

Eurasian Jackdaw (Corvus monedula) - HBW 14, p. 617

French: Choucas des tours German: Dohle Spanish: Grajilla Occidental
Other common names: (Western/Common) Jackdaw

Taxonomy: Corvus Monedula Linnaeus, 1758, Europe = Sweden.
This species and C. dauuricus sometimes placed together in a separate genus, Coloeus. The two form a species pair and are sometimes considered conspecific, but they seem to replace each other geographically in vicinity of L Baikal and N Mongolia, meeting on very narrow front, but with very few reports of mixed pairings. Geographical variation complex, with individual and clinal variation. Other proposed races are turrium, brehmi and hilgerti (all described from Germany), ibericus (S Spain) and nigerrimus (Morocco), all synonymized with sperm.. View all taxonomy...

Taxonomy: Corvus Monedula Linnaeus, 1758, Europe = Sweden.
This species and C. dauuricus sometimes placed together in a separate genus, Coloeus. The two form a species pair and are sometimes considered conspecific, but they seem to replace each other geographically in vicinity of L Baikal and N Mongolia, meeting on very narrow front, but with very few reports of mixed pairings. Geographical variation complex, with individual and clinal variation. Other proposed races are turrium, brehmi and hilgerti (all described from Germany), ibericus (S Spain) and nigerrimus (Morocco), all synonymized with spermologus, and tischleri (NE Poland), sophiae (E Poland), schluteri (Belarus), collaris (Macedonia), pontocaspicus (Cyprus) and ultracollaris (Tien Shan), all treated as synonyms of soemmerringii. Four subspecies currently recognized.

Subspecies and Distribution:

  • monedula Linnaeus, 1758 - Scandinavia.
  • spermologus Vieillot, 1817 - W & C Europe from British Is, S to Morocco and NW Algeria.
  • cirtensis ( Rothschild & E. J. O. Hartert, 1912) - NE Algeria.
  • soemmerringii J. G. Fischer von Waldheim, 1811 - E Europe (from S Finland, E Poland, Balkans, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, and N Israel) E in Asia to L Baikal, W China (W Xinjiang) and Kashmir.

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