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The superb fairy-wren (''Malurus cyaneus''), also known as the superb blue-wren or colloquially as the blue wren, is a passerine bird of the family Maluridae, common and familiar across southeastern Australia. The species is sedentary and territorial, also exhibiting a high degree of sexual dimorphism; the male in breeding plumage has a striking bright blue forehead, ear coverts, mantle, and tail, with a black mask and black or dark blue throat. Non-breeding males, females and juveniles are predominantly grey-brown in colour; this gave the early impression that males were polygamous, as all dull-coloured birds were taken for females. Six subspecies groups are recognized: three larger and darker forms from Tasmania, Flinders and King Island respectively, and three smaller and paler forms from mainland Australia and Kangaroo Island. Like other fairy-wrens, the superb fairy-wren is notable for several peculiar behavioural characteristics; the birds are socially monogamous and sexually promiscuous, meaning that although they form pairs between one male and one female, each partner will mate with other individuals and even assist in raising the young from such pairings. Male wrens pluck yellow petals and display them to females as part of a courtship display. The superb fairy-wren can be found in almost any area that has at least a little dense undergrowth for shelter, including grasslands with scattered shrubs, moderately thick forest, woodland, heaths, and domestic gardens. It has adapted well to the urban environment and is common in suburban Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. The superb fairy-wren eats mostly insects and supplements its diet with seeds. ==Taxonomy== The superb fairy-wren is one of 12 species of the genus ''Malurus'', commonly known as fairy-wrens, found in Australia and lowland New Guinea. Within the genus, the superb fairy-wren's closest relative is the splendid fairywren; these two "blue wrens" are also related to the purple-crowned fairywren of northwestern Australia. William Anderson, surgeon and naturalist on Captain James Cook's third voyage, collected the first superb fairywren specimen in 1777 while traveling off the coast of eastern Tasmania, in Bruny Island's Adventure Bay. He named it ''Motacilla cyanea'' because its tail reminded him of the European wagtails of the genus ''Motacilla''. Anderson did not live to publish his findings, although his assistant William Ellis described the bird in 1782. The genus ''Malurus'' was later described by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816, giving the bird its current scientific name. Shortly after the First Fleet's arrival at Port Jackson, Sydney, the bird gained the common name ''superb warbler''. In the 1920s came common names ''wren'' and ''wren-warbler''—both from its similarity to the European wren—and ''fairywren''. The bird has also been called ''Mormon wren'', a reference to observations of one blue-plumaged bird accompanied by many brown-plumaged birds, which were incorrectly assumed to be all female. The Ngarrindjeri people of the Murray River and Coorong regions called it ''waatji pulyeri'', meaning "little one of the ''waatji'' (lignum) bush", and the Gunai called it ''deeydgun'', meaning "little bird with long tail". Both it and the variegated fairywren were known as ''muruduwin'' to the local Eora and Darug inhabitants of the Sydney basin. Like other fairywrens, the superb fairywren is unrelated to the true wren. 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 being 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Superb fairywren」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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