Santa Cruz fantail
Santa Cruz fantail
The Santa Cruz fantail (Rhipidura melanolaema) is a small bird in the fantail family that lives only on the Santa Cruz Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It used to be thought of as a subspecies of the Australian rufous fantail, but today it is treated as its own species because genetic differences set them apart.
It was first described in 1879 by English ornithologist Richard Bowdler Sharpe, based on a specimen collected on Vanikoro in the Santa Cruz Islands. Sharpe placed it in the genus Rhipidura and gave it the name Rhipidura melanolaema. The species name comes from Greek words meaning "black throat."
Three subspecies are recognised.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 00:47 (CET).