Species group · Birds

Nutcrackers

WAnimals has 2 species of nutcracker, all in the family Corvidae.

2 species

1 family

19 countries

110 parks

Ranges calculated from the entries that record the figure, not from all 2.

All 2 species of nutcrackers on WAnimals

Each one has its own full entry. This group does not replace them: it brings them together.

Northern Nutcracker

Nucifraga caryocatactes

Clark's Nutcracker

Nucifraga columbiana

2 Least Concern

No species documented in this group is genuinely at risk according to the IUCN, with the data available today.

Recorded in 19 countries. The ones with the most species in the group:

It hides as many as 30,000 pine seeds a year and remembers where most of them are.
From Northern Nutcracker
It buries tens of thousands of seeds every autumn in individual caches and recovers most of them months later, even under a metre of snow, guided by landmarks: it is one of the greatest feats of spatial memory documented in any animal.
From Northern Nutcracker
The Swiss stone pine of the Alps depends on it to reproduce: its seeds do not fly, and without the nutcracker's forgotten caches the stone pine forest would not regenerate.
From Northern Nutcracker
It can bury more than thirty thousand pine seeds in a single autumn, spread across thousands of caches kilometres apart, and recover most of them months later beneath a metre of snow, guided by landmarks.
From Clark's Nutcracker
It has a sublingual pouch, a cavity beneath the tongue unique to its genus, in which it carries as many as a hundred pine seeds at once over several kilometres.
From Clark's Nutcracker
The whitebark pine depends almost entirely on it to reproduce: its seeds do not fly, and without the nutcracker's forgotten caches that high-altitude forest would not regenerate.
From Clark's Nutcracker