Micronesian rufous fantail
The Micronesian rufous fantail is a species of bird in the family Rhipiduridae that is endemic to the Mariana Islands and the island of Yap in Micronesia. It was formerly considered to be a subspecies of the Australian rufous fantail.
Taxonomy
The Micronesian rufous fantail was formally described in 1872 by the German ornithologists Gustav Hartlaub and Otto Finsch based on specimens collected by the Polish naturalist John Stanislaw Kubary on the island of Yap in Micronesia. They placed it with the fantails in the genus Rhipidura and coined the binomial name Rhipidura versicolor. The specific epithet is Latin meaning "various colours". The Micronesian rufous fantail was formerly considered to be a subspecies of the rufous fantail but is now treated as a separate species mainly based on the genetic differences.Four subspecies are recognised:R. v. uraniae Oustalet, 1881 – Guam this subspecies is ExtinctR. v. saipanensis Hartert, EJO, 1898 – Saipan, Tinian and Aguiguan R. v. mariae Baker, RH, 1946 – Rota R. v. versicolor Hartlaub & Finsch, 1872 – Yap