The southern scrub robin (''Drymodes brunneopygia'') 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 lightweigh ...

in the family

Petroicidae The bird family Petroicidae includes 51 species in 19 genera. All are endemic to Australasia: New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and numerous Pacific Islands as far east as Samoa. For want of an accurate common name, the family is often called th ...

. 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 elsew ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, where it occurs in mallee and

heathland A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler ...

in the semi-arid southern parts of the continent, extending from

Wyperfeld National Park The Wyperfeld National Park is the third largest national park in Victoria, Australia, located in the Mallee district, approximately northwest of Melbourne, The national park was declared in 1921 and expanded significantly to protect of malle ...

in Victoria in the east through South Australia to the west coast between Kalbarri and the Pinnacles in

Nambung National Park Nambung National Park is a national park in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, 200 km northwest of Perth, Australia and 17 km south of the small coastal town of Cervantes. The park contains the Pinnacles Desert which is an are ...

. It is a relatively dull and large robin, adults being around in length, of which around a third is the tail feathers. Most of the plumage is grey, except for a dullish red tail and patterned black-and-white wings. The legs are unusually long for a passerine, and are frequently used to hop through the dense heathland that forms the bird's habitat, where it searches 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 and other small invertebrates. Unusually for a passerine, the southern scrub robin lays only a single egg, which is grey-green in colour for camouflage amongst the sclerophyllous flora that forms its habitat. Each year between July and December, an egg is laid in a nest of twigs on the ground, and which subsequently hatches after sixteen days.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1587849 southern scrub robin Birds of Western Australia Birds of South Australia Birds of New South Wales Endemic birds of Australia southern scrub robin Taxonomy articles created by Polbot