Australian Fairy-Wrens: Maluridae

Fairy-wrens can be found throughout Australia and New Guinea. Some species are found only in a limited area, while others are distributed over the entire continent. Emu-wrens and grasswrens only inhabit Australia. Fairy-wrens are found in New Guinea as well as Australia.

Australian fairy-wrens are omnivores, eating both plants and animals. They forage, search for food, on the ground for wide range of invertebrates, animals with backbones and also harvest foliage, twigs, and bark, and sometimes catch flying insects from the air. Some species are more specific in their foraging, as in the case of the purple-crowned fairy-wren that forages in pandanus plants along the edges of tropical streams, rivers, and ponds.

There is no specific connection to humans other than through observation that has named the family as among the most beautiful of birds. They continue to be studied as a "recently" discovered separate family, only identified in 1975. DNA research in the late 1990s finally discovered their distinct identity.

Australian fairy-wrens are not currently threatened, though overgrazing and the changes in the land that come from agriculture and timber production do provide a potential threat.