The classification of the Asian crows has been in a state of confusion.
This species was described as Corvus culminatus by Colonel W. H Sykes based on a specimen from Pune.
Eugene Oates lumped this with Corvus macrorhynchos in  The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma (1889), based on what had been concluded by Allan Octavian Hume based on the inability to see consistent differences in the specimens.
W. E. Brooks had pointed out that the voice of the Himalayan species differed significantly apart from having a longer tail.
The second edition of The Fauna of British India. (
1922) by Stuart Baker considered macrorhynchos as a form restricted to Java and considered the Indian forms to be made up of three subspecies of the Australian raven (Corvus coronoides).
Ernst Hartert looked at the colour of the base of the neck feather and grouped those that had grey bases into one group (coronoides ravens) and those that had white bases into the crow (southern) group and the northern forms, including the Indian ones, into levaillantii, with nine subspecies.
Ernst Mayr reshuffled the group in 1940.
Hugh Whistler and Norman Boyd Kinnear decided that the three Indian forms culminatus, intermedius and macrorhynchos were subspecies of Corvus macrorhynchos.
Charles Vaurie made another revision in 1954.
Salim Ali and Dillon Ripley in the Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan used macrorhynchos, under which they placed four forms: culminatus, intermedius, levaillantii and tibetosinensis.

Ectoparasitic bird lice in the genus Myrsidea coevolve with their hosts and a study of speciation within the genus suggested distinct groups with well-marked distributions.
Comparisons of the vocalizations of birds from different areas also indicated clear differences and analysis of sequence divergence in the mitochondrial DNA suggests that the Himalayan population (termed as japonensis by some or as intermedius+tibetosinensis by those who restrict the range of japonensis to Japan) differentiated from the plains-dwelling culminatus nearly 2 million years ago.
The classification of the Asian crows has been in a state of confusion. This species was described as Corvus culminatus by Colonel W. H Sykes based on a specimen from Pune. Eugene Oates lumped this with Corvus macrorhynchos in  The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma (1889), based on what had been concluded by Allan Octavian Hume based on the inability to see consistent differences in the specimens. W. E. Brooks had pointed out that the voice of the Himalayan species differed significantly apart from having a longer tail. The second edition of The Fauna of British India. (1922) by Stuart Baker considered macrorhynchos as a form restricted to Java and considered the Indian forms to be made up of three subspecies of the Australian raven (Corvus coronoides). Ernst Hartert looked at the colour of the base of the neck feather and grouped those that had grey bases into one group (coronoides ravens) and those that had white bases into the crow (southern) group and the northern forms, including the Indian ones, into levaillantii, with nine subspecies. Ernst Mayr reshuffled the group in 1940. Hugh Whistler and Norman Boyd Kinnear decided that the three Indian forms culminatus, intermedius and macrorhynchos were subspecies of Corvus macrorhynchos. Charles Vaurie made another revision in 1954. Salim Ali and Dillon Ripley in the Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan used macrorhynchos, under which they placed four forms: culminatus, intermedius, levaillantii and tibetosinensis. 
Ectoparasitic bird lice in the genus Myrsidea coevolve with their hosts and a study of speciation within the genus suggested distinct groups with well-marked distributions. Comparisons of the vocalizations of birds from different areas also indicated clear differences and analysis of sequence divergence in the mitochondrial DNA suggests that the Himalayan population (termed as japonensis by some or as intermedius+tibetosinensis by those who restrict the range of japonensis to Japan) differentiated from the plains-dwelling culminatus nearly 2 million years ago.
Indian jungle crow