Broad-billed Fairywren

Broad-billed Fairywren
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Maluridae
Genus: Malurus
Species: M. grayi
Binomial name
Malurus grayi
(Wallace, 1862)
Synonyms

Malurus campbelli Schodde & Weatherly, 1982

The Broad-billed Fairywren (also known as the Campbell's Fairywren) (Malurus grayi) is a species of bird in the Maluridae family. It is found in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.

Taxonomic note

Malurus grayi and M. campbelli (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) have been lumped into M. grayi following Beehler et al. (1986), Coates (1990) and Vuilleumier et al. (1992).

A 2011 analysis by Amy Driskell and colleagues of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA showed high divergence between the two subspecies and has recommended they be resplit into separate species. It also found them to lie in a clade with the two other monospecific New Guinea genera and not with the other species of Malurus. Hence they recommend reclassifying them within the genus Chenorhamphus.[1]

References

  1. ^ Driskell, Amy C. ; Norman, Janette A. ; Pruett-Jones, Stephen ; Mangall, Elizabeth ; Sonsthagen, Sarah ; Christidis, Les (2011). "A multigene phylogeny examining evolutionary and ecological relationships in the Australo-papuan wrens of the subfamily Malurinae (Aves)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 60: 480–85. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2011.03.030. PMID 21466855. 
Species