Taxonomy
The Red-winged Fairywren was officially described by ornithologist John Gould in 1837, who derived the bird's specific name derived from the Latin term elegans 'elegant'. He gave its location as the East Coast, but realised his error after further collections by John Gilbert from Southwestern Australia. Amateur ornithologist Gregory Mathews described birds from the southern Karri forests as subspecies warreni in 1916 on the basis of darker female plumage. However, others have not observed this subsequently and the consensus is that no separate subspecies are recognized. In fact there is little variation in size or colour within the species between populations or individuals.
It is one of 12 species of the genus Malurus, 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 Blue-breasted Fairywren (M. pulcherrimus) of southern Western Australia and the Eyre Peninsula. Molecular study showed the Blue-breasted Fairywren to be the most closely related to the Red-winged Fairywren.
Like other fairywrens, the Red-winged 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.
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