[order] GRUIFORMES | [family] Rallidae | [latin] Laterallus melanophaius | [UK] Rufous-sided Crake | [FR] Rale brunoir | [DE] Rothals-Ralle | [ES] Polluela Burrito | [NL] Braziliaanse Dwergral Subspecies Monotypic species Genus Physical charateristics Neck, back and wings bronze-brown. Area around eyes grey. Ront of head and ear covers and side of breast chestnut. Romp […]
Category: Gruiformes
Hawaiian Crake (Porzana sandwichensis)
The story A small species of rail once inhabited the main island of Hawaii and perhaps some other Hawaiian islands. A handful of specimens exist in the museums of the world but these have in themselves caused some controversy. Two of them are rather paler in colour than the rest, giving rise to the idea […]
Laysan Crake (Porzana palmeri)
The story Laysan is a tiny coral island around 1280 km to the north-east of Hawaii, and one of its few inhabitants was a small species of rail. Because it is so remote, the island was infrequently visited but, nevertheless, there are several good accounts of the bird in life. These consistently tell of how […]
Mauritian Red Rail (Aphanapteryx bonasia)
The story Scattered among the seventeenth century written accounts and illustrations that relate to the celebrated Dodo are descriptions and pictures of a flightless bird of a rather different kind. These pictures show a creature that in overall shape and appearance looks something like a kiwi. A long, down-curved beak, rather hair-like plumage and stout […]
Samoan Moorhen (Gallinula pacifica)
The story There seem to be eleven specimens of this species in the world’s museums, the first collected during 1869 and the last perhaps a mere five years later. Since then the species has never more been located. Little is known of it other than that it inhabited the Samoan island of Savaii. It was […]
Wake Rail (Gallirallus wakensis)
The story The Wake Rail has acquired the grim celebrity of having been eaten out of existence by hungry Japanese soldiers during World War II. Unable to fly, these rails could scuttle about their island home quickly, but despite their agility any efforts to escape would have been no match for the concerted efforts of […]
Leguats Rail (Aphanapteryx leguati)
The story The Huguenot refugee Francois Leguat discovered a relative of the Mauritian Red Rail during his two-year sojourn on the island of Rodrigues: Our Wood-hens are fat all the year round and of a most delicate taste. Their colour is always of a bright grey, and there is very little difference in the plumage […]
White Gallinule (Porphyrio albus)
The story When British ships belonging to what was known as the First Fleet were dispatched under Governor Phillip to Australia during the late 1780’s, their task was to found a penal colony to which British felons could be transported. Much of interest surrounds this rather unpleasant endeavour and one of the by-products of the […]
Tahiti Rail (Gallirallus pacificus)
The story The Tahitian Red-billed or Tahiti Rail is known only from a painting that survives today in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London. This painting was produced by Georg Forster, one of the naturalists who sailed with Captain James Cook on his second epic voyage around the world during the 1770’s. Forster’s […]
Chatham Rail (Gallirallus modestus)
The story This species seems to provide a fairly typical example of the way in which rails develop on isolated islands. It is assumed that this is another form that has evolved from an ancestral stock resembling the Buff-banded Rail, but in this case the evolution was rather more advanced than in others. Following the […]