INDO-CHINESE GREEN MAGPIE

 

Photographed at Dong Nai Nature Reserve, Vietnam, May 2024.

  1347               INDO CHINESE GREEN MAGPIE                  Cissa hypoleuca 

VIETNAM                14

The Indochinese green magpie (Cissa hypoleuca), also known as the yellow-breasted magpie, is a small colorful bird native to the forests. They are native to Asia, and can be found in China, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. The yellow-breasted magpie can be found in moist forests within the tropical and subtropical regions of their distribution.

The yellow-breasted magpie can eat a lot of different things, as it is carnivorous. Its diet includes small frogs, insects, eggs of snakes and lizards, and nestlings. The insects from its diet eat a lot of lutein-rich plants, which is a yellow carotenoid pigment. This component is what makes the birds from the Cissa genus go from blue to bright green. Malnourished birds can be found to be more of a blue color due to the lack of the lutein pigment, since its body does not produce it.