White-winged Fairywren - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

A specimen of the White-winged Fairywren was first collected by French naturalists Jean René Constant Quoy and Joseph Paul Gaimard in September 1818, on Louis de Freycinet's voyage around the Southern Hemisphere. The specimen was lost in a shipwreck, but a painting entitled Mérion leucoptère by Jacques Arago survived and led to the bird's description in 1824 by French ornithologist Charles Dumont de Sainte-Croix. The name for the species was derived from the Ancient Greek leuko- 'white' and pteron 'wing'.

Ironically, the original specimen was of the black-plumaged subspecies from Dirk Hartog Island, which was not recorded again for 80 years. Meanwhile, the widespread blue-plumaged subspecies was discovered and described as two separate species by John Gould in 1865. He called one specimen collected from inland New South Wales the White-winged Superb Warbler, M. cyanotus, while another, which appeared to have a white back and wings, was described as M. leuconotus, the White-backed Superb Warbler. It was not until the early 20th century that both of these blue-plumaged mainland forms were found to be of a single species. George Mack, ornithologist of the National Museum of Victoria, considered the specific name leuconotus to take precedence in his 1934 revision of the genus, and more recent studies have followed suit. The back region between the shoulders is in fact bare, with feathers that arise from the shoulder (scapular) region and sweep inwards in different patterns. This variation confused the early naturalists who described the white-backed and blue-backed species.

The White-winged Fairywren was often referred to as the Blue-and-white Wren, and early observers, such as Norman Favaloro of Victoria, refer to them by this name. However, like other fairywrens, the White-winged Fairywren is unrelated to the true wren (family Troglodytidae). It was previously classified as a member of the old world flycatcher family Muscicapidae, and later as a member of the warbler family Sylviidae, before they were placed in the newly recognised Maluridae in 1975. More recently, DNA analysis has shown the Maluridae family to be related to the Meliphagidae (honeyeaters), and the Pardalotidae (pardalotes, scrubwrens, thornbills, gerygones and allies) in the large superfamily Meliphagoidea.

Within the Maluridae, it is one of 12 species in the genus, Malurus. It is most closely related to the Australian Red-backed Fairywren, with which it makes up a phylogenetic clade with the White-shouldered Fairywren of New Guinea as the next closest relative. Termed the bicoloured wrens by ornithologist Richard Schodde, these three species are notable for their lack of head patterns and ear tufts and their uniform black or blue plumage with contrasting shoulder or wing colour; they replace each other geographically across northern Australia and New Guinea.