Large scrubwren
The large scrubwren is a bird species. Placed in the family Pardalotidae in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, this has met with opposition and indeed is now known to be wrong; they rather belong to the independent family Acanthizidae.
It is found in New Guinea. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forests.
Taxonomy
The large scrubwren was formally described in 1909 by the Dutch ornithologist Eduard Daniël van Oort based on a specimen collected in the Jayawijaya Mountains of western New Guinea by the Dutch explorer Hendrikus Albertus Lorentz. Van Oort considered the specimen to be a subspecies on the grey-green scrubwren and coined the trinomial name Sericornis arfakiana nouhuysi. He chose the epithet nouhuysi to honour Jan Willem van Nouhuys, Lorentz's travelling companion.Ten subspecies are recognised:S. n. cantans Mayr, 1930 – montane Bird south Head and Arfak Mts. S. n. nouhuysi van Oort, 1909 – montane central west New GuineaS. n. idenburgi Rand, 1941 – Gauttier Mountains and slopes above Idenburg River S. n. stresemanni Mayr, 1930 – montane central, central east New GuineaS. n. adelberti Pratt, 1982 – Adelbert Range S. n. oorti Rothschild & Hartert, EJO, 1913 – Huon Peninsula and Herzog Mountains S. n. monticola Mayr & Rand, 1936 – montane southeast New GuineaS. n. jobiensis Stresemann & Paludan, 1932 – Yapen S. n. pontifex Stresemann, 1921 – Victor Emanuel Mountains, Hunstein Range and Sepik Mountains S. n. virgatus – central north, northeast New Guinea
Subspecies S. n. virgatus, S. n. jobiensis and S. n. pontifex have sometimes been considered as a separate species, the perplexing scrubwren.