New Zealand Robin - General Description and Taxonomy

General Description and Taxonomy

In general, the male's plumage is a dark gray while the female is dark gray-brown. On both birds the throat and belly are considerably lighter, in the male a cream color, which, in comparison with the European Robin’s similarly bright chest, is why the New Zealand Robin is referred to as such. Usually they are found on the edges of the forest, and can often be found in the green belts of towns and cities. These birds are endemic to New Zealand. They are naturally tame and inquisitive toward humans and are therefore easily trained.

(Petroica australis) is situated in the order Passeriformes of the class Aves within the phylum Chordata of the kingdom Animalia. (P. australis) has two subspecies, (P. australis australis) (South Island robin) and (P. australis rakiura) (Stewart Island robin). These two groups are subspecies because although they can interbreed, they do not inhabit the same geographic area, and thus do not have the opportunity to interbreed. On the other hand, the North Island robin, (Petroica longipes), is classified as a completely separate species because of the deep divergence between the mitochondrial DNA phylogeny of the two groups. The Petroicidae family to which all of these robins belong are Australo-Papuan robins of which there are 44 species in Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea, and they are not closely related to either the North American robin (family Turdidae) nor the Eurasian robins (family Muscicapidae). They are closely tied genetically with the Black Robin ((Petroica traversi)) in the Chatham Islands and the tomtit ((Petroica macrocephala)). (P. traversi) seems to be a Chatham Island derivative of (P. australis). It has yet to be determined how close the most recent common ancestor is between (P. macrocephala) and (P. australis).)