Troglodytes (wren) - Systematics and Species

Systematics and Species

The closest living relatives of this genus are possibly the Timberline Wren and the Cistothorus species rather than the Henicorhina wood-wrens as is sometimes proposed.

A number of the Troglodytes species, such as the Clarion Wren, were formerly considered subspecies of the House Wren, and it has been argued that at least the tropical forms of the House Wren should be further split as the Southern House Wren, Troglodytes musculus. The Socorro Wren, in older times placed into Thryomanes (Bewick's Wren), is actually a close relative of the House Wren complex, as indicated by "manners, song, plumage, etc" and by biogeography and mtDNA NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 sequence analysis.

The Winter Wren is less closely related to the other members of the genus, and is occasionally split as the monotypic genus Nannus. It might actually be closely related to Cistothorus, but again, the molecular data is insufficient to properly resolve this issue.