Stephens Island Wren - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The Stephens Island Wren was long remembered in local mythos as the only known species to be entirely wiped out by a single living being: the local lighthouse keeper's cat, named Tibbles. However, this belief was erroneous; while this cat did kill one of the last birds seen, a few more specimens were obtained in the following years, by which time the island also hosted numerous feral cats. The scientific name commemorates the assistant lighthouse keeper, David Lyall, who first brought the bird to the attention of science. Originally, the bird was described as a distinct genus, Traversia, in honor of naturalist and curio dealer Henry H. Travers who procured many specimens from Lyall, but is currently considered to be part of the Xenicus wrens, which are not wrens at all, but a similar-looking New Zealand lineage of primitive passerines, better referred to as acanthisittidae.

It is the best known of the extremely few (five or so) flightless passerines known to science (Millener, 1989), all of which were inhabitants of islands and are now extinct. The others were relatives of Xenicus and the Long-legged Bunting from Tenerife, all of which were only discovered recently and became extinct in prehistoric times. In addition, the Bush Wren (another acanthisittid recently extinct) and the Chatham Fernbird (an "Old World warbler") were largely flightless.