Wrens

All 2 species of wrens on WAnimals

Each one has its own full profile. This group does not replace them: it brings them together.

Conservation status

Where they live

Recorded in 50 countries. The ones with the most species in the group:

Where to see them

Did you know…?

• For all its tiny size, it has one of the loudest songs relative to body weight of any European bird.

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• It is polygamous: the male may mate with several females, which is why clutch size varies so much from one nest to another.

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• It is the only representative of its family in the Old World; the other wrens, as many as 93 species, are American.

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• Its family is a recent discovery: well into the twenty-first century its species were still scattered among the bulbuls, warblers and other families, and only genetics revealed that they form a group of their own, confined to Madagascar and descended from a single colonisation.

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• It is an example of island adaptive radiation: from a common ancestor, the species of that family today occupy niches as different as the understorey, the canopy and the tree trunks, with very different bills.

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• It is a regular member of the mixed flocks of the Malagasy forest, in which several species travel together and benefit from the collective watch.

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Ecosystems