Ptilostomus

Ptilostomus is a monotypic genus in the crow family Corvidae containing a single species, the piapiac, an African bird smaller and slimmer than the European magpie, 35 to 42 centimetres long and weighing 121 to 130 grams, with predominantly black plumage showing a purplish sheen, a thick bill with upturned nasal plumes covering the nostrils, and an unusual ten rather than twelve tail feathers for a passerine. It ranges across the tropical equatorial belt of central Africa from Senegal east to Sudan and southern Ethiopia, favouring open cultivated land such as fields, pastures and small settlements, and molecular phylogenetic research finds it most closely related to the Central Asian ground jays of the genus Podoces.