Mangrove Grey Fantail

Morphology

The Mangrove Grey Fantail is mostly pale grey, with a white line over the eye, a white throat, white bands across the scapulars (shoulders), white lined wing feathers and white tips on the tail feathers. The belly is buff or buffy white.
The Grey Fantail is very similar to the Mangrove Grey Fantail, which was originally considered a single species. The Mangrove grey Fantail is distinguished by being paler, and having a very faint band across the breast, between the white throat and buff belly. In the Grey Fantail this band is more distinct.

Evolution

The Mangrove Grey Fantail belongs to the Family Monarchidae, the monarch flycatchers. This Family includes the fantails and monarch flycatchers, and has a broad distribution from Africa, south east Asia, Australia and some Pacific islands. Molecular data place the Mangrove Grey Fantail with the other “grey” fantails; Rhipidura albiscapa, R. albolimbata, R. fuliginosa, and R. hyperythra; and with the “streaked” fantails; R. rennelliana, R. tenebrosa, and R. verreauxi. Of these, only R. fuliginosa is found in Australia, and is commonly called the Grey Fantail. In Western Australia, areas where mangroves do not grow break up the distribution of the Mangrove Grey Fantail. These areas have been tested as long-term barriers to dispersal, and the possibility for populations to be distinct on either side of these barriers.

Behaviour

The most distinctive feature of the fantails is their erratic movement and fanning tails. This is most commonly recognised in the Willy Wagtail, a member of the same genus as the Mangrove Grey Fantail. This behaviour has evolved to startle small insects, forcing them to reveal themselves to the insectivorous Fantails.

Method of reproduction

Sexual

Habitat

Terrestrial

The Mangrove Grey Fantail is restricted to mangrove habitat.

Distribution

The Mangrove Grey Fantail is found in northern Australia, from the Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland to just north of Shark Bay, in Western Australia.
In Western Australia, its distribution is in the mangrove habitat, north of Shark Bay, and is broken up by the presence and absence of mangrove habitat, to which it is restricted. Major breaks in its distribution include eighty-mile beach, located between the Pilbara and Kimberley regions.
Not endemic to Western Australia.