Taxonomy
The common name of the genus is derived from the resemblance of their tails to the feathers of an Emu. The genus was defined by French naturalist René Lesson in 1831 after his visit to Port Jackson on the 1823-5 voyage of the Coquille, although the Southern Emu-wren had already been encountered and described soon after European settlement at Sydney Cove. The three species have been variously considered as one, two or even four species (the Western Australian subspecies westernensis of the Southern considered a species at one point. Their closest relative, based on allozyme studies, appears to be the Orange-crowned Fairywren of the monotypic genus Clytomyias from the mountains of New Guinea.
The three species are:
- Southern Emu-wren (Stipiturus malachurus), found in coastal southeastern and southwestern Australia. It has seven recognised subspecies.
- Mallee Emu-wren (Stipiturus mallee) (endangered), restricted to the Mallee country of Northwestern Victoria and southeastern South Australia.
- Rufous-crowned Emu-wren (Stipiturus ruficeps) of the arid interior of central-northern Australia.
Ornithologist Richard Schodde has proposed the Southern Emu-wren is the ancestral form from which the other two species have evolved.
Read more about this topic: Emu-wren