Blue-breasted fairywren
| Blue-breasted fairywren | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Maluridae |
| Genus: | Malurus |
| Species: | M. pulcherrimus |
| Binomial name | |
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Malurus pulcherrimus Gould, 1844 |
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| Distribution of the blue-breasted fairywren | |
The blue-breasted fairywren (Malurus pulcherrimus) is a species of passerine bird in the family Maluridae. It is endemic to Australia.
John Gould described the blue-breasted fairywren in 1844. its species name is the Latin adjective pulcherrimus "very pretty".
It is one of 11 species of the genus Malurus,m commonly known as fairywrens, found in Australia and lowland New Guinea. Within the genus it belongs to a group of four very similar species known collectively as chestnut-shouldered fairywrens. The other three species are the lovely fairywren (M. amabilis) of Cape York, the variegated fairywren (M. lamberti) found across most of the continent, and the red-winged fairywren (M. elegans) of southwestern Western Australia. Molecular study showed the blue-breasted fairywren to be the most closely related to the red-winged fairywren.
Like other fairywrens, the blue-breasted fairywren is unrelated to the true wrens. Initially fairywrens were thought to be a member of the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae or warbler family Sylviidae before being placed in the newly recognised Maluridae in 1975. More recently, DNA analysis has shown the family to be related to Meliphagidae (honeyeaters) and the Pardalotidae in a large superfamily Meliphagoidea.
In his 1982 monograph, ornithologist Richard Schodde proposed a northern origin for the chestnut-shouldered fairywren group due to the variety of forms in the north and their absence in the southeast of the continent. Ancestral birds spread south and colonised the southwest during a warm and wetter period around 2 million years ago at the end of the Pliocene or beginning of the . Subsequent cooler and drier conditions resulted in loss of habitat and fragmentation of populations. Southwestern birds gave rise to what is now the red-winged fairywren, while those in the northwest of the continent became the variegated fairywren. Further warmer, humid conditions again allowed birds to spread southwards; this group, occupying central southern Australia east to the Eyre Peninsula, became the blue-breasted fairywren. Cooler climate after this resulted in this being isolated as well and evolving into a separate species. Finally, after the end of the last glacial period 12,000–13,000 years ago, the northern variegated forms have again spread southwards. This has resulted in the ranges of all three species overlapping. Further molecular studies may result in this hypothesis being modified.
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Wikipedia