The Kadavu fantail (''Rhipidura personata'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

in the

fantail Fantails are small insectivorous songbirds of the genus ''Rhipidura'' in the family Rhipiduridae, native to Australasia, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Most of the species are about long, specialist aerial feeders, and named as ...

family

Rhipiduridae The family Rhipiduridae are small insectivorous birds of Australasia, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent that includes the fantails and silktails. Taxonomy and systematics There are four genera classified within the family: * Subfamily R ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

Kadavu Kadavu may refer to: * Kadavu Island Kadavu (pronounced ), with an area of , is the fourth largest island in Fiji, and the largest island in the '' Kadavu Group'', a volcanic archipelago consisting of Kadavu, Ono, Galoa and a number of smaller i ...

and Ono in the Kadavu archipelago, in southern Fiji. It is closely related to the

streaked fantail The streaked fantail (''Rhipidura verreauxi'') is a species of bird in the family Rhipiduridae. ''Rhipidura verreauxi'' has precedence over ''Rhipidura spilodera'' (Dickinson & Watling 2006). It is found in Fiji, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu. ...

of the rest of Fiji, and forms a superspecies with the numerous island species of fantail ranging from the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its ca ...

(the brown fantail) to

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono Island, Manono an ...

(the Samoan fantail). The Kadavu fantail is restricted to tropical moist lowland

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s, where it feeds by flycatching for

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s. It sometimes joins

mixed-species feeding flock A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species that join each other and move together while foraging. These are ...

s with

Polynesian triller The Polynesian triller (''Lalage maculosa'') is a passerine bird belonging to the triller genus ''Lalage'' in the cuckoo-shrike family Campephagidae. It has numerous subspecies distributed across the islands of the south-west Pacific. It is 1 ...

s, Fiji bush warblers and

silvereye The silvereye or wax-eye (''Zosterops lateralis'') is a very small omnivorous passerine bird of the south-west Pacific. In Australia and New Zealand its common name is sometimes white-eye, but this name is more commonly used to refer to all membe ...

s. The breeding season is October and November. It is threatened by

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

Taxonomy

Kadavu fantail (''R. personata'') forms a superspecies with: * Brown fantail (''R. drownei'') * Makira fantail (''R. tenebrosa'') *

Rennell fantail The Rennell fantail (''Rhipidura rennelliana'') is a species of bird in the family Rhipiduridae. It is endemic to Rennell Island (Solomon Islands). Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. Description The plumage ...

(''R. rennelliana'') *

Streaked fantail The streaked fantail (''Rhipidura verreauxi'') is a species of bird in the family Rhipiduridae. ''Rhipidura verreauxi'' has precedence over ''Rhipidura spilodera'' (Dickinson & Watling 2006). It is found in Fiji, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu. ...

(''R. verreauxi'') * Samoan fantail (''R. nebulosa'')

References

Rhipidura Endemic birds of Fiji Birds described in 1876 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Rhipiduridae-stub