An omnivorous open woodland bird with a strong territorial instinct, the common myna has adapted extremely well to urban environments.

[4] In 1760, the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the common myna in his Ornithologie, based on a specimen that he mistakenly believed had been collected in the Philippines.

[13][14] The common myna is readily identified by the brown body, black hooded head and the bare yellow patch behind the eye.

[13][14] The calls includes croaks, squawks, chirps, clicks, whistles and 'growls', and the bird often fluffs its feathers and bobs its head in singing.

[13] The common myna is native to Asia, with its initial home range spanning Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, peninsular Thailand, Indochina, Japan (both mainland Japan and the Ryukyu Islands) and China.

Although it is an adaptable species, its population is abnormal and very much considered a pest in Singapore (where it is locally called as gembala kerbau, literally 'buffalo shepherd') due to competition with the related introduced Javan myna.

[23] The bird likely owes its success in the urban and suburban settings of Sydney and Canberra to its evolutionary origins; having evolved in the open woodlands of India, the common myna is pre-adapted to habitats with tall vertical structures and little to no vegetative ground cover,[24] features characteristic of city streets and urban nature preserves.

It feeds on insects, grubs, earthworms, arachnids, crustaceans, reptiles, small mammals, seeds, grain, fruits, flower nectar and petals, and discarded waste from human habitation.

It walks on the ground with occasional hops and is an opportunistic feeder on the insects disturbed by grazing cattle as well as fired grass fields.

[37] Communal displays (pre-roosting and post-roosting) consist of aerial maneuvers which are exhibited in the pre-breeding season (November to March).

[39] It has since been introduced widely elsewhere, including adjacent areas in Southeast Asia, Madagascar,[40] the Middle East, South Africa, the United States, Argentina, Germany, Spain and Portugal,[41] the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and various oceanic islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, including prominent populations in Fiji and Hawaii.

[18][42] The common myna is regarded as a pest in South Africa, North America, the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand and many Pacific islands.

Self-sustaining populations have been found in regions with a mean monthly highest temperature no less than 23.2 °C (73.8 °F) and a mean monthly lowest temperature no less than −0.4 °C (31.3 °F), implying that the common myna could spread from Sydney northwards along the eastern coast to Cairns, and westwards along the southern coast to Adelaide, but not to Tasmania, Darwin, or the arid outback regions.

However, the cooler summer temperatures in the South Island appear to have impeded the breeding success rate of the southern populations, preventing the proliferation of the species, which was largely non-existent there by the 1890s.

In South Africa it is considered somewhat of a major pest and disturbance of the natural habitat; as a result, it has been declared an invasive species,[58] requiring it to be controlled.

[59] Dispersal-relevant traits are significantly correlated with distance from the range core, with strong sexual dimorphism, indicative of sex-biased dispersal.

In contrast, traits not related to dispersal such as those associated with foraging show no signs of spatial sorting but are significantly affected by environmental variables such as vegetation and intensity of urbanisation.

[60] To study the invasion genetics and landscape-scale dynamics of A. tristis, scientists have recently developed 16 polymorphic nuclear microsatellite markers [61] using the next generation sequencing (NGS) approach.

The common myna is a hollow-nesting species; that is, it nests and breeds in protected hollows found either naturally in trees or artificially on buildings (for example, recessed windowsills or low eaves).

[65] In Hawaii, where the common myna was introduced to control pest armyworms and cutworms in sugarcane crops, the bird has helped to spread the robust Lantana camara weed across the islands' open grasslands.

[67] Common mynas can cause considerable damage to ripening fruit, particularly grapes, but also figs, apples, pears, strawberries, blueberries, guava, mangoes and breadfruit.

Common mynas are known to carry avian malaria and exotic parasites such as the Ornithonyssus bursia mite, which can cause dermatitis in humans.

Common mynas are regularly observed to usurp nests and hollows, destroy the eggs and kill the young of native bird species, including seabirds and parrots.

There is evidence that common mynas have killed small land mammals such as mice, squirrels and possums, but further research on these occurrences is under consideration.

[68] The common myna, being a major agricultural pest and posing a threat to native species in non-native countries, is controlled by various factors.