A jay is a member of a number of species of medium-sized, usually colorful and noisy, passerinebirds in the crowfamily, Corvidae. The evolutionary relationships between the jays and the magpies are rather complex. For example, the Eurasian magpie seems more closely related to the Eurasian jay than to the East Asianblue and green magpies, whereas the blue jay is not closely related to either. The Eurasian jay distributes oak acorns, contributing to the growth of oak woodlands over time.
Systematics and species
Jays are not a monophyletic group. Anatomical and molecular evidence indicates they can be divided into a New World and an Old World lineage (the latter including the ground jays and the piapiac), while the grey jays of the genus Perisoreus form a group of their own.[1] The black magpies, formerly believed to be related to jays, are classified as treepies.
The word jay has an archaic meaning in American slang meaning a person who chatters impertinently.[2][3]
The term jaywalking was coined in the first decade of the 1900s to label persons crossing a busy street carelessly and becoming a traffic hazard.[4] The term began to imply recklessness or impertinent behavior as the convention became established.[5]
In January 2014, Canadian author Robert Joseph Greene embarked on a lobbying campaign among ornithologists in Europe and North America to get Merriam-Websters Dictionary to have a "Jabber of Jays" as an official term under bird groups.[6][7]
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