Daito Wren

The Borodino Wren ( Troglodytes troglodytes orii ) is a controversial subspecies of wren. It is only by the holotype, a male, known to the on Minami- Daitō, the main island of Daitō Islands ( formerly called Borodino Islands) east of Okinawa was collected in January 1938 and now in the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology ( Collection No. 25476 ) is located. The Japanese ornithologist Yoshimaro Yamashina described this bird as a new subspecies, after he had compared him with 114 specimens of other species Zaunkönigtaxa from the surrounding areas. With the epithet Yamashina honored the bird collector Hyojiri Orii, who discovered this bird.

The Borodino Wren reached a size of nine to eleven inches. He was a bush resident who fed on insects.

Recently, however, there was always likely to observations of wrens on Yonaguni and Okinawa. Therefore, it seems likely that the bird of Daitō only a stray migratory subspecies of Honshu ( T. t. Fumigatus ), Yakushima / Tanegashima ( T. t. Ogawae ) or of Izu ( T. t. Mosukei ) ( Vaurie, 1955) might have been, especially since he looks very similar to the subspecies of Izu.

Undoubtedly, however, many bird populations have been exterminated on the islands south of Japan in the late 1930s, their habitat has been destroyed by civil and military offices.