Purple-backed Fairywren

I notice that the IOC (as of June 9th) is considering the split of
Purple-backed Fairywren (Malurus assimilis) from Variegated Fairywren
(Malurus lamberti).

I would assume that ‘dulcis’ and ‘rogersi’ and ‘bernieri’ would be
part of ‘assimilis’?

I am a little surprised. I thought that ‘dulcis’ and ‘rogersi’ were
the very different ones, and I hadn’t thought that ‘assimilis’ was
regarded as being with them. The females of ‘dulcis’ and ‘rogersi’
are quite different.

Apparently this is based on a paper by McLean et al. 2017. I haven’t
read the paper.

_________________________________________________________________
Frank O’Connor Birding WA
birdingwa.iinet.net.au
Phone : (08) 9386 5694 Email : foconnor@iinet.net.au