The Smoky Robin is a species of bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

 in the Petroicidae

Petroicidae

The bird family Petroicidae includes roughly 45 species in about 15 genera. All are endemic to Australasia: New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and numerous Pacific Islands as far east as Samoa. For want of an accurate common name, the family is often called the Australasian robins. Within the...

 family endemic to West Papua, Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

. Its natural habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

 is subtropical or tropical moist montane

Montane

In biogeography, montane is the highland area located below the subalpine zone. Montane regions generally have cooler temperatures and often have higher rainfall than the adjacent lowland regions, and are frequently home to distinct communities of plants and animals.The term "montane" means "of the...

s.

Described by German ornithologist Ernst Hartert

Ernst Hartert

Ernst Johann Otto Hartert was a German ornithologist. Hartert was born in Hamburg. He was employed by Lionel Walter Rothschild as ornithological curator of his private museum at Tring from 1892 to 1929....

 in 1874, the Smoky Robin is a member of the Australian Robin family Petroicidae

Petroicidae

The bird family Petroicidae includes roughly 45 species in about 15 genera. All are endemic to Australasia: New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and numerous Pacific Islands as far east as Samoa. For want of an accurate common name, the family is often called the Australasian robins. Within the...

, or Eopsaltridae. Sibley

Charles Sibley

Charles Gald Sibley was an American ornithologist and molecular biologist. He had an immense influence on the scientific classification of birds, and the work that Sibley initiated has substantially altered our understanding of the evolutionary history of modern birds.Sibley's taxonomy has been a...

 and Ahlquist's DNA-DNA hybridisation

DNA-DNA hybridisation

DNA-DNA hybridization generally refers to a molecular biology technique that measures the degree of genetic similarity between pools of DNA sequences. It is usually used to determine the genetic distance between two species...

 studies placed this group in a Corvida

Corvida

The "Corvida" were one of two "parvorders" contained within the suborder Passeri, as proposed in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy. Standard taxonomic practice would place them at the rank of infraorder....

 parvorder comprising many tropical and Australian passerines including pardalotes, fairy-wrens

Maluridae

The Maluridae are a family of small, insectivorous passerine birds endemic to Australia and New Guinea. Commonly known as wrens, they are unrelated to the true wrens of the Northern Hemisphere...

 and honeyeaters as well as crows. However, subsequent molecular research (and current consensus) places the robins as a very early offshoot of the Passerida

Passerida

Passerida is under the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, one of two "parvorders" contained within the suborder Passeri...

, or "advanced" songbirds, within the songbird

Songbird

A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds . Another name that is sometimes seen as scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin oscen, "a songbird"...

lineage.