A guide to Australia's most colourful robins
BY AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC | SEPTEMBER 11, 2019
Pink, orange and yellow: Australias robins are one of the countrys most colourful birds.
THE FIRST THING you need to know about Australias robins is that theyre nothing like European robins. They actually belong to a family called
Petroicidae or Australasian robins, which contains 49 species.
As Bec Crew writes, Australian robins were named after European robins by ornithologists who travelled to Australia at the time of European settlement and decided to call them robins too, despite fundamental genetic and morphological differences between them.
Australias robins have to be considered some of the countrys cutest birds. Round, puffy and brightly coloured, theyre much-loved and widely photographed. Here are some of our favourites.
Hooded robin
Melanodryas cucullata
More:
https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2019/09/a-guide-to-australias-most-colourful-robins/