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The Chatham Islands rail (''Cabalus modestus''), also known as the Chatham rail is an
File:MA I264486 TePapa Cabalus-modestus-Hutton full.jpg
File:MA I264487 TePapa Cabalus-modestus-Hutton full.jpg
File:MA I359976 TePapa Cabalus-modestus-Hutton full.jpg, Lateral view
File:MA I359977 TePapa Cabalus-modestus-Hutton full.jpg, Dorsal view
File:MA I359978 TePapa Cabalus-modestus-Hutton full.jpg, Ventral view
File:MA I359979 TePapa Cabalus-modestus-Hutton full.jpg, Oblique view
Specimens from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.Specimens from the Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira
Cabalus Bird extinctions since 1500 Extinct birds of the Chatham Islands Taxa named by Frederick Hutton (scientist) Birds described in 1872 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Species made extinct by human activities {{Gruiformes-stub
extinct
Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...
flightless
Flightless birds are birds that cannot fly, as they have, through evolution, lost the ability to. There are over 60 extant species, including the well-known ratites ( ostriches, emus, cassowaries, rheas, and kiwis) and penguins. The smal ...
species of bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...
in the family Rallidae
Rails (avian family Rallidae) are a large, Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan family (biology), family of small- to medium-sized terrestrial and/or semi-amphibious birds. The family exhibits considerable diversity in its forms, and includes ...
. It was endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...
to Chatham, Mangere and Pitt Island
Pitt Island ( Moriori: , ) is the second largest island in New Zealand's Chatham Islands, with an area of . It lies about to the east of New Zealand's main islands, and about to the southeast of Chatham Island, from which it is separated by ...
s, in the Chatham archipelago of New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
. The Chatham Islands rail was first discovered on Mangere in 1871, and 26 specimens collected there are known from museum collections. Its Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...
name was "mātirakahu".
Taxonomy
The Chatham Islands rail and the Dieffenbach's rail, both extinct and flightless, weresympatric
In biology, two closely related species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus frequently encounter each other. An initially interbreeding population that splits into two or more distinct spe ...
on the Chatham Islands
The Chatham Islands ( ; Moriori language, Moriori: , 'Misty Sun'; ) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island, administered as part of New Zealand, and consisting of about 10 islands within an approxima ...
. Their sympatry suggests parallel evolution
Parallel evolution is the similar development of a trait in distinct species that are not closely related, but share a similar original trait in response to similar evolutionary pressure.Zhang, J. and Kumar, S. 1997Detection of convergent and pa ...
after separate colonisation of the Chatham Islands by different rail ancestors. A genetic analysis from 1997 suggested that the two were sister taxa
In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree.
Definition
The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram:
Taxon A and ...
. However more recent genetic analysis finds them to not be closely related within the ''Gallirallus'' radiation, with a 2014 analysis finding the Chatham Islands rail being sister taxon to the possibly extinct New Caledonian rail instead.
Extinction
It became extinct on the island between 1896 and 1900. The species is also known from 19th century bones from Chatham and Pitt Islands. It is likely to have occurred inscrubland
Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominance (ecology), dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbaceous plant, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally o ...
and tussock grass. Its extinction was presumably caused by predation by rats and cats (which were introduced in the 1890s), habitat destruction
Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease ...
to provide sheep
Sheep (: sheep) or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to d ...
pasture (which destroyed all the island's bush and tussock grass by 1900), and from grazing by goats and rabbits. On Chatham and Pitt Islands, Olson has suggested that its extinction resulted from competition with the larger Dieffenbach's rail (also extinct), but this has been refuted later when the two species have been shown to have been sympatric
In biology, two closely related species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus frequently encounter each other. An initially interbreeding population that splits into two or more distinct spe ...
on Mangere.Olson (1975c)See also
* Hawkins's rail, another extinct flightless rail endemic to the Chatham Islands.References
External links
*Specimens from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
Cabalus Bird extinctions since 1500 Extinct birds of the Chatham Islands Taxa named by Frederick Hutton (scientist) Birds described in 1872 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Species made extinct by human activities {{Gruiformes-stub