Talk:Azure-winged magpie

Split

I think this needs splitting into two species, seeing as how the two populations did about a million years ago. Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:39, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Misleading information on the species split

"It was formerly thought to be conspecific with the Iberian magpie, but recent genetic analysis has shown them to be distinct at species level".

This is totally misleading to the uninitiated reader as to the actual historical sequence of events. There were (are) two populations of what was then known as the Azure-winged magpie, the main population in Asia and a totally separate population in the Iberian penininsula. It was then shown that (unsurprisingly) the Iberian population had diverged so much that it should be regarded as a separate species and this species was then named the Iberian magpie.

The sentence in the article as it stands implies that there were two subspecies named Iberian magpie and Azure-winged magpie which were thought to be races of a single species but were then shown to be separate species. Moreover, the wording implies that the "species" was the Iberian magpie, and that the Azure-winged magpie was regarded as a subspecies of this. Neither of these is true. The name "Iberian magpie" did not exist until the Iberian population was shown to be a separate species from the main Asian population of the Azure-winged magpie.

I'm too much of a newby around here to know how to fix this but somebody should. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.129.254.70 (talk) 22:18, 2 July 2017 (UTC)