The Taiwan cupwing or Taiwan wren-babbler (''Pnoepyga formosana'') is a species of

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

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

Pnoepygidae ''Pnoepyga'' is a genus of passerines endemic to southern and southeastern Asia. Its members are known as cupwings or wren-babblers. The genus contains four species. The genus has long been placed in the babbler family Timaliidae. A 2009 study o ...

. The species 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 ...

to the island of

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. It was treated for a long time as a subspecies of the

scaly-breasted cupwing The scaly-breasted cupwing or scaly-breasted wren-babbler (''Pnoepyga albiventer'') is a species of bird in the Pnoepyga wren-babblers family, Pnoepygidae. It is found in southern and eastern Asia from the Himalayas to Indochina. Taxonomy and s ...

Description

The bird is 8 to 9 cm long. The bird seems to be tailless, is olive-brown from above and the plumage has the pattern of fish scales on the chest. The Taiwan wren-babbler is very similar to the scaly-breasted cupwing, with pale-colored scales on an almost black surface. The wings and legs are shorter and the bird is more reddish-brown in color.

Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. T ...

, dl. 12, 2007.

References

*Collar, N. J. & Robson, C. 2007. Family Timaliidae (Babblers) pp. 70 – 291 in; del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A. & Christie, D.A. eds. ''

'', Vol. 12. Picathartes to Tits and Chickadees. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

Taiwan cupwing The Taiwan cupwing or Taiwan wren-babbler (''Pnoepyga formosana'') is a species of passerine bird in the family Pnoepygidae. The species is endemic to the island of Taiwan. It was treated for a long time as a subspecies of the scaly-breasted cup ...

Endemic birds of Taiwan

{{timaliidae-stub