| Fantails | |
|---|---|
 New Zealand Fantail (Rhipidura fuliginosa) | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Rhipiduridae |
| Genus: | Rhipidura |
Fantails are birds of the genus Rhipidura, the most diverse of the 4 genera within the family Rhipiduridae. They are found in Australasia, southeastern Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Most of the species within the genus range from 15 to 18 cm long, are specialist aerial feeders, and named as "fantails", with the exception of Willie Wagtail, being a little larger bird that focuses equally on terrestrial prey despite it being a skillful pursuer of insects on the wing.
Description[]
Fantails are small bodied songbirds with lengths ranging from 11.5 to 21 cm and masses weighing from 4.5-25 g. Their incredibly distinctive long tails, longer than the body in some species and longer than the wing in most, that spread out like a fan in display or aerial foraging sessions, give the species of the genus their names. They usually stand in a hunched horizontal stance, with the wings drooped, held away from the body, and the tail nearly positioned upright, though for a few species, such as the Northern Fantail and the Cockerell's Fantail, they have a more upright posture similar to that of the monarch flycatchers. Their wings are tapered and and shaped dominantly for dexterous agility, not fast speed, making these birds eminently efficient at seizing insect prey. For the most part, fantails are strong flyers, and several species can undertake long migrations, yet the species group known as thicket fantails (Sooty Thicket Fantail, White-bellied Thicket Fantail and Black Thicket Fantail) are very weak flyers that need to alight regularly. Their bills, flat and triangular as typical for aerial-foraging insectivorous birds, are surrounded by two rows of long (even often as long as the beak) rictal bristles on the gape. The fairly weak attribute of the bill limits these kinds of birds to eating softer insects. However, the more terrestrially fit Wille Wagtail has a stronger bill.
A rare black morph New Zealand Fantail.
Fantails evince some plumage variation, with most of the species having relatively uniform, adequately marked plumage. A scanty amount of species, such as the Rennell Fantail, have uniform plumage, while many others have striking if sombre patterns. The colors of most species include greys, blacks, whites and browns, yet nearly not any species have yellow or even striking blue feathers. Sexual dimorphism is not present in most fantails; an exception is the Black Fantail, where the male has all-over black plumage and the female is almost entirely rufous. In a few species, most remarkably the New Zealand Fantail, there exist two colour morphs: the common pied morph and the rarer black morph, which is most common in South Island.
Behavior[]
The behavior of most fantail species have not been greatly researched and documented, but the family is overall fairly uniform in its habits. Even anecdotal observations of less studied species suggest a high of similarity with the better studied species. Generally, fantails are highly active birds constantly on the move, flying fast and rarely sitting. Even when perched they continue to rock back and forth, spin 180° on the spot, wag their tail from side to side or fan it.
Flight[]
Fantails are highly agile in flight and undertake highly aerobatic and intricate looping flights while using their fanned tail to quickly change directions in air.
Feeding[]
A Grey Fantail leaps from a branch in pursuit of insects. This aerial chase is a behavior known as hawking.
The fantail's diet is composed mostly of insects and small invertebrates. Insect prey is generally small and easily handled, but larger items sometimes need to be subdued in a way such as removing the wings of moths and butterflies by being banged on branches. The exception for this genus is the larger Willie Wagtail that can tackle creatures as large as small skinks.
The fantail's tail is extremely helpful in its aerial pursuit of insects. Their tail allows them to change directions quickly in flight. Fantails mostly use the hawking technique for areas where vegetation is open and they can see for long distances. Fantails use a perch to spot swarms of insects and then fly at the prey, snapping several insects at a time. In denser vegetation, fantails use flushing. The fantail flies to disturb insects, flushing them out before eating them. Sometimes fantails hop around upside-down amongst tree ferns and foliage to pick insects from the underside of leaves. They seldom feed on the ground, with the exception of the Willie Wagtail.
Fantails frequently form associations with other species in order obtain prey. Some species, such as the Willie Wagtail, perch on the backs of cattle, which they use both as a vantage point and because the cattle flush up insects. This behaviour has given the Willie Wagtail the nickname "shepherd's companion". Fantails are often very bold around people and will approach them closely in order to capture insects flushed by them. Different species are also frequently found in mixed-species feeding flocks, often travelling with Silvereyes, whiteheads, parakeets and saddlebacks on the periphery of the flocks taking advantage of flushed prey.
Breeding and Nesting[]
Fantails are territorial, willing to aggressively defend their territories from conspecifics, other fantail species, and other flycatchers.
The female selects the nesting site that are often close to the previous year's nest. Both the male and female will build a small cup of grass stems neatly bound together in spider silk, finishing it in 10 days' time. Many species incorporate a trailing tail into the base of the nest. The purpose of this is thought to conceal the nest by breaking up its shape, although little other effort is made to conceal the cup. To compensate for the high visibility of the nest, fantails will aggressively defend their chicks from potential predators.
Female fantails will also distract a potential predator by appearing to be injured and luring the predator away from the nest. While the female is pretending to be injured the male may continue to attack the predator. In spite of this fantails have a generally low nesting success, but this is made up for the large clutch they will produce.
Fantail chicks are fed every 10 minutes. In a day's time, this can total to more than 100 times.
Distribution and Habitat[]
An Australasian family whose range has spread from as far as Samoa to northern India, fantails, many of which are sedentary and don't migrate at all, are fairly diverse in sizes of distribution different species have, with numerous species, such as the Willie Wagtail, Grey Fantail, White-throated Fantail and Northern Fantail, having a widespread distribution, and some, especially those settling in insular ecosystems, having a highly restricted range.
There are some species who venture on a variety of movements. An example of a species undertaking a type of movement is the Yellow-bellied Fantail, which breeds at high elevations between 1500 and 4000 m, but makes altitudinal movements to lower elevations (even as low as 180 m) in the winter. There are also species that commence seasonal migrations, in which they vary considerably even within individual species. For instance, southeastern populations of Rufous Fantails, in which numerous individuals from this population move together to northern Queensland and New Guinea, demonstrate more pronounced migratory behavior than the individuals in the rest of the bird's range.
Fantails possess a wide variety of habitat preferences. While the majority of species are normally found in rainforests, these birds exist in the most available habitats from deserts and mangrove forests to highly modified agricultural and urban environments. Out of all fantails, the Mangrove Fantail has the most restricted habitat requirements as it is completely limited to mangrove forests over some of its range, though it can exist 3 km away in absence of other fantails. Most species are capable of surviving in a certain variety of habitats. Some of the more primitive kinds are predominantly restricted to primary rainforest, yet most others can survive in more disturbed forest. The Willie Wagtail is the most adaptable species of fantail, being abundant in Australia's habitats of almost all types.
Species[]
Based on the IOC's listing as of June 2021, these are the following species and notable extinct subspecies of typical fantails:
- Mindanao Blue Fantail (Rhipidura superciliaris)
- Visayan Blue Fantail (Rhipidura samarensis)
- Blue-headed Fantail (Rhipidura cyaniceps)
- Tablas Fantail (Rhipidura sauli)
- Visayan Fantail (Rhipidura albiventris)
- Chestnut-bellied Fantail (Rhipidura hyperythra)
- Friendly fantail (Rhipidura albolimbata)
- Grey Fantail (Rhipidura albiscapa)
- New Zealand Fantail (Rhipidura fuliginosa)
- Lord Howe Fantail (Rhipidura fuliginosa cervina) - extinct (c.1925)
- Mangrove Fantail (Rhipidura phasiana)
- Brown Fantail (Rhipidura drownei)
- Makira Fantail (Rhipidura tenebrosa)
- Rennell Fantail (Rhipidura rennelliana)
- Streaked Fantail (Rhipidura verreauxi)
- Kadavu Fantail (Rhipidura personata)
- Samoan Fantail (Rhipidura nebulosa)
- Sulawesi Fantail (Rhipidura teysmanni)
- Taliabu Fantail (Rhipidura sulaensis)
- Tawny-backed Fantail (Rhipidura superflua)
- Streak-breasted Fantail (Rhipidura dedemi)
- Long-tailed Fantail (Rhipidura opistherythra)
- Palau Fantail (Rhipidura lepida)
- Rufous-backed Fantail (Rhipidura rufidorsa)
- Bismarck Fantail (Rhipidura dahli)
- Mussau Fantail (Rhipidura matthiae)
- Malaita Fantail (Rhipidura malaitae)
- Arafura Fantail (Rhipidura dryas)
- Pohnpei Fantail (Rhipidura kubaryi)
- Rufous Fantail (Rhipidura rufifrons)
- Guam Rufous Fantail (Rhipidura rufifrons uraniae) - extinct (1984)
- Manus Fantail (Rhipidura semirubra)
- Dimorphic Fantail (Rhipidura brachyrhyncha)
- Black Fantail (Rhipidura atra)
- Black-and-cinnamon Fantail (Rhipidura nigrocinnamomea)
- Rufous-tailed Fantail (Rhipidura phoenicura)
- White-bellied Fantail (Rhipidura euryura)
- Spotted Fantail (Rhipidura perlata)
- White-browed Fantail (Rhipidura aureola)
- Malaysian Pied Fantail (Rhipidura javanica)
- Philippine pied Fantail (Rhipidura nigritorquis)
- White-throated Fantail (Rhipidura albicollis)
- White-spotted Fantail (Rhipidura albogularis)
- Brown-capped Fantail (Rhipidura diluta)
- Cinnamon-tailed Fantail (Rhipidura fuscorufa)
- Northern Fantail (Rhipidura rufiventris)
- Biak Fantail (Rhipidura kordensis)
- Cockerell's Fantail or White-winged Fantail (Rhipidura cockerelli)
- Sooty Thicket Fantail (Rhipidura threnothorax)
- White-bellied Thicket Fantail (Rhipidura leucothorax)
- Black Thicket Fantail (Rhipidura maculipectus)
- Willie Wagtail (Rhipidura leucophrys)
- Peleng Fantail (Rhipidura habibiei)
Former species and other species not in the genus named as "Fantail"[]
Formerly, some authorities also considered the following species (or subspecies) as species within the genus Rhipidura:
- Slaty Monarch (as Rhipidura lessoni)
- Yellow-bellied Fantail (as Rhipidura hypoxantha) – recognized in 2009 as a fairy-flycatcher of family Stenostiridae and has been moved to its old genus Chelidorhynx.
- Black Monarch (as Rhipidura fallax)
The Drongo Fantail, a species that used to be long placed with the drongo family (Dicruridae) and is nowadays placed as the sister of differently named birds in the family Rhipiduridae known as silktails, is classified in its monotypic genus Chaetorhynchus.