fairywren

[prettygoodword]

fairywren (FAI-ree-ren) - n., any of sixteen small Australian warblers (tribe Malurini) having brilliant male plumage and drab brown female colors.


Wren sized and shaped, but this is convergent evolution -- they (and their cousins the emuwrens and grasswrens) are actually most closely related to honeyeaters. This is the white-winged fairywren:


Thanks, WikiMedia!

Not quite what I think of as fairy-like but I won't cast shade on whoever does.

---L.

Comments

[full_metal_ox]

In keeping with sentimentalized Victorian storybook portrayals of fairies in the Anglo-diasporic world, the adjective “fairy” came to denote anything tiny and cute; see also fairy penguins, fairy terns, fairy shrimp, and pink fairy armadillos.

[prettygoodword]

True, but then ALL wrens are fairywrens. Well, except for cactus wrens, which are the size of cardinals. But all other ye basic wrens are fairy-size.

[full_metal_ox]

The fairy animals also tend to be strikingly colored, though—which might further their supernatural air of Otherness.