Education | Birds
What is a Wren?
This has been a wren rant for your reading pleasure…
Everybody loves a Wren, am I right? They’re adorable little things, and in Australia we got a whole swag of them. From the Superb and Splendid Fairywrens to the Emu-wren, each one packing a pocket full of brilliant plumes that just won’t quit.
But hang on a tick. If we pop over the pond, we find another bird called the New Zealand Rock Wren, and if we head north we find another bird that is simply known as The Wren. So what’s going on here?
Well, if you’re sitting back and thinking, hey, those birds don’t look all that similar to me — you would be right. They’re not related at all. The word ‘wren’ is one of the most fiendish words in the ornithological biz. But don’t worry, I’m here to straighten it out for you.
First up, we’ve got to start with a family of birds known as the ‘True Wrens’. These all belong to the family Troglodytidae, and if you think that word looks similar to the insult ‘troglodyte’, again you would be right. You’re on fire today. But in this case, it isn’t an insult. We’re not calling these birds dim or slow-witted, rather the Wren family is given this name because of the word’s literal meaning — cave dweller. This is thanks to some species habit of forage for food in dark crevices.
There are about 88 or so birds in this family, and all of them live in South America. With the exception of the Eurasian Wren, who is the little fellow that was granted the name first, and really kicked off all the trouble.
The Australian Fairywrens aren’t related to these birds at all. They belong to their own family, Maluridae, and in my opinion, they’re the prettiest.
Same deal for the New Zealand Wrens. Unrelated to either of the first two groups, they belong to the family, Acanthisittidae. Sadly, many members of this family were driven to extinction when Europeans arrived in New Zealand. Today only two members of the family remain.
So, now we’ve coved all of our Wrens, right? Wrong! Hold onto your tail feathers, because it’s about to get weird.
Next up we have the Antwrens: neotropical birds also unrelated to every other bird we’ve mentioned. Why are they called Antwrens? It actually comes from their habit of following invading army ants and picking off the insects they flush out of the undergrowth.
But we don’t have time to linger there, because here come the Wren-babblers. These guys live in India and again, are unrelated to every other bird. Do they babble, though? One can only hope. On the plus side, they are impossibly cute, as the Pygmy Wren-babbler attests to with its long legs and stubby tail.
Okay, so to recap: one family of true wrens, another two families from Australia and New Zealand, along with the Antwrens and Wren-babblers (which are not distinct taxonomic families themselves, but a subset of larger families (Thamnophilidae and Timaliidae, respectively)), none of them directly related. Have you got that straight? Good.
Because now we have the Wren-like Rushbird. Not a Wren, just ‘wren-like’… I mean, is it really wren-like? I don’t even know at this point. It lives in the swamplands of South America. Is it related to any of the other birds we’ve spoken about? If you’re still asking that question, I feel like you haven’t been paying attention. No, it belongs in the family Furnariidae. Are any of the other members of its family called ‘wren-like’? They are not.
At this point, we must concede that language has no inherent meaning and give up.
Wrens — they’re whatever you want them to be.
This has been a wren rant for your reading pleasure.
