Stipiturus

The emu-wrens (Stipiturus) are a genus of passerine birds in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. They are found only in Australia, where they inhabit scrub, heathland and grassland. They are small birds, 12–19 cm long with the tail accounting for over half of their length. The tail has only six feathers which are loose and coarse in structure, rather like the feathers of the emu. Three species are recognised, of which the mallee emu-wren is endangered.

==Taxonomy and systematics== The common name of the genus is derived from the resemblance of their tails to the feathers of an emu. The genus was defined by French naturalist René Lesson in 1831 after his visit to Port Jackson on the 1823-5 voyage of the Coquille, although the southern emu-wren had already been encountered and described soon after European settlement at Sydney Cove. The three species have been variously considered as one, two or even four species (as the Western Australian subspecies westernensis of the southern emu-wren also considered a species at one point. Their closest relative, based on allozyme studies, appears to be the orange-crowned fairywren of the monotypic genus Clytomyias from the mountains of New Guinea.