Cyanocitta cristata
The blue jay is a passerine bird in the family Corvidae, native to eastern North America. It lives in most of the eastern and central United States; some eastern populations may be migratory. Resident populations are also in Newfoundland, Canada; breeding populations are found across southern Canada. It breeds in both deciduous and coniferous forests, and is common in residential areas. Its coloration is predominantly blue, with a white chest and underparts, and a blue crest; it has a black, U-shaped collar around its neck and a black border behind the crest. Males and females are similar in size and plumage, which does not vary throughout the year. Four subspecies have been recognized.

Rhododendrites · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- blue jayPBDB
- Sits inside
- CyanocittaPBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Corvidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Corvidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Corvidae
Time the record covers
At least 1.6 million years on record.
The record covers at least 1.8 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
9 occurrences of Cyanocitta cristata on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
9 occurrences- Pleistocene99%
- Holocene1%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
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The named rock units Cyanocitta cristata has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Cyanocitta cristata and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Cyanocitta cristata and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
519 taxa- Colaptes auratus8 sites
- Ectopistes migratorius7 sites
- Falco sparverius7 sites
- Megascops asio7 sites
- Bonasa umbellus6 sites
- Colinus virginianus6 sites
- Meleagris gallopavo6 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus6 sites
- Picoides villosus6 sites
- Podilymbus podiceps6 sites
- Scalopus aquaticus6 sites
- Agelaius phoeniceus5 sites
- Anas crecca5 sites
- Glaucomys volans5 sites
- Melanerpes carolinus5 sites
- Microtus pennsylvanicus5 sites
- Microtus pinetorum5 sites
- Neotoma floridana5 sites
- Scolopax minor5 sites
- Spatula discors5 sites
- Accipiter striatus4 sites
- Amblystoma4 sites
- Anas platyrhynchos4 sites
- Aythya collaris4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Cyanocitta cristata, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
9 references- Late Pleistocene birds from Kingston Saltpeter Cave, southern Appalachian Mountains, Georgia1
- Avian community, climate, and sea-level changes in the Plio-Pleistocene of the Florida Peninsula1
- A late Pleistocene avifauna from northwestern Alabama1
- Quaternary vertebrate localities of Virginia and their avian and mammalian fauna1
- Evidence of a Boreal Avifauna in Middle Tennessee during the Late Pleistocene1
- The Clark's Cave bone deposit and the Late Pleistocene paleoecology of the central Appalachian Mountains of Virginia1
- The Pleistocene vertebrate fauna of Reddick, Florida1
- The Pleistocene local fauna of the Natural Chimneys, Augusta County, Virginia1
- The Pleistocene avifauna of Arredondo, Florida1
Each of the 9 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Cyanocitta cristata
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Rhododendrites
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Blue jay”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itCyanocitta through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)