New Zealand Fernbird Poodytes punctatus Scientific name definitions

The New Zealand Fernbird is New Zealand’s only member of the Locustellidae. Its taxonomic placement has proved difficult, having been treated in either the genus Megalurus or the monospecific Bowdleria until comparatively recent times. True to the family, it is a medium-small, thickset, and usually skulking (but not necessarily shy), mouselike warbler with a very long tail, a fairly short, stout, and slightly decurved bill, and a rather flat crown. The species is brownish above and paler below, with a pale supercilium and dark eyestripe, and most of the five subspecies are heavily streaked blackish brown both above and below; the exception, the subspecies caudatus, found on the remote Snares Islands, has little streaking on the upperparts and has sometimes been suggested to represent a separate species. Despite some declines and local extirpations, fernbirds are still reasonably widespread across New Zealand, including both North Island and South Island, some islets in the Foveaux Strait, on Stewart Island and several of its satellites, Codfish Island and neighboring Putauhinu, and on four of the Snares Islands in the country’s subantarctic territories. In most parts of its range, it is perhaps most frequently found in dense shrubland and rushbeds, typically associated with freshwater and saline wetlands from sea level up to 1,000 m above sea level, mainly in vegetation < 2 m tall and dominated by reeds, rushes, and sedges. However, it occurs in a variety of shrubby and grassy habitats, including dry mānuka (Leptospermum scoparium) forest. Several of the different populations (subspecies) are now quite small and of varying degrees of conservation concern, especially stewartianus (on Stewart Island) and caudatus (on the Snares), with the latter considered globally Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.