Campbell's fairywren


Campbell's fairywren is a species of bird in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. It is found in New Guinea. It is found in south-central and south-eastern New Guinea in its natural habitat of subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.

Taxonomy and systematics

Formerly, this species was lumped with the broad-billed fairywren in the genus Malurus until a 2011 analysis of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA showed high divergence between the two subspecies resulting in them being re-split into separate species. The study also found them to lie in a clade with the genera Sipodotus and Clytomyias leading to their subsequent re-classification in their own genus, Chenorhamphus. The species is named after Rob Campbell, of Dunfermline, Scotland, who identified it during his time in Papua New Guinea in the 1980s.