Rails (avian family Rallidae) are a large,
cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan may refer to:
Internationalism
* World citizen, one who eschews traditional geopolitical divisions derived from national citizenship
* Cosmopolitanism, the idea that all of humanity belongs to a single moral community
* Cosmopolitan ...
family
Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
of small- to medium-sized terrestrial and/or semi-amphibious
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 ...
s. The family exhibits considerable diversity in its forms, and includes such ubiquitous species as the crakes,
coots, and
gallinule; other rail species are extremely rare or endangered. Many are associated with
wetland
A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...
habitats, some being semi-aquatic like
waterfowl
Anseriformes is an order of birds also known as waterfowl that comprises about 180 living species of birds in three families: Anhimidae (three species of screamers), Anseranatidae (the magpie goose), and Anatidae, the largest family, which i ...
(such as the coot), but many more are wading birds or shorebirds. The ideal rail habitats are
marsh
In ecology, a marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous plants rather than by woody plants.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p More in genera ...
areas, including
rice paddies, and flooded fields or open forest. They are especially fond of dense vegetation for nesting.
[Horsfall & Robinson (2003): pp. 206–207] The rail family is found in every
terrestrial habitat
In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...
with the exception of dry
desert
A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the la ...
,
polar or freezing regions, and
alpine areas (above the
snow line
The climatic snow line is the boundary between a snow-covered and snow-free surface. The actual snow line may adjust seasonally, and be either significantly higher in elevation, or lower. The permanent snow line is the level above which snow wil ...
). Members of Rallidae occur on every continent except
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...
. Numerous unique island species are known.
Name
"Rail" is the anglicized respelling of the French ''râle'', from
Old French
Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th [2-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...
''rasle''. It is named from its harsh cry, in Vulgar Latin *''rascula'', from Latin ''rādere'' ("to scrape").
Morphology

The rails are a family of small to medium-sized, ground-living birds. They vary in length from and in weight from . Some species have long necks and in many cases are laterally compressed.
The
bill is the most variable feature within the family. In some species, it is longer than the head (like the
clapper rail of
the Americas
The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.'' Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sin ...
); in others, it may be short and wide (as in the
coots), or massive (as in the
purple gallinules).
[Horsfall & Robinson (2003): p. 208] A few coots and gallinules have a
frontal shield
A frontal shield, also known as a facial shield or frontal plate, is a feature of the anatomy of several bird species. Located just above the upper mandible, and protruding along the forehead, it is composed of two main parts: a hard, proteinaceo ...
, which is a fleshy, rearward extension of the upper bill. The most complex frontal shield is found in the
horned coot.
[Horsfall & Robinson (2003): p. 210]
Rails exhibit very little
sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different Morphology (biology), morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecy, di ...
in either
plumage
Plumage () is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can b ...
or size. Two exceptions are the
watercock (''Gallicrex cinerea'') and the
little crake (''Zapornia parva'').
[
]
Flight and flightlessness
The wings of all rails are short and rounded. The flight
Flight or flying is the motion (physics), motion of an Physical object, object through an atmosphere, or through the vacuum of Outer space, space, without contacting any planetary surface. This can be achieved by generating aerodynamic lift ass ...
of those Rallidae able to fly, while not powerful, can be sustained for long periods of time, and many species migrate annually. The weakness of their flight, however, means they are easily blown off course, thus making them common vagrants
Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, scavenging, or petty theft. In Western countries, ...
, a characteristic that has led them to colonize many isolated oceanic islands. Furthermore, these birds often prefer to run rather than fly, especially in dense habitat. Some are also flightless at some time during their moult
In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is a process by which an animal casts off parts of its body to serve some beneficial purpose, either at ...
periods.[Horsfall & Robinson (2003): p. 209]
Flightlessness in rails is one of the best examples of parallel evolution in the animal kingdom. Of the roughly 150 historically known rail species, 31 extant or recently extinct species evolved flightlessness from volant (flying) ancestors.[Kirchman (2012)] This process created the endemic populations of flightless rails seen on Pacific islands today.
Many island rails are flightless because small island habitats without mammalian predators eliminate the need to fly or move long distances. Flight
Flight or flying is the motion (physics), motion of an Physical object, object through an atmosphere, or through the vacuum of Outer space, space, without contacting any planetary surface. This can be achieved by generating aerodynamic lift ass ...
makes intense demands, with the keel
The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element of a watercraft, important for stability. On some sailboats, it may have a fluid dynamics, hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose as well. The keel laying, laying of the keel is often ...
and flight muscles taking up to 40% of a bird's weight. Reducing the flight muscles, with a corresponding lowering of metabolic
Metabolism (, from ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cellular processes; the ...
demands, reduces the flightless rail's energy expenditures. For this reason, flightlessness makes it easier to survive and colonize an island where resources may be limited.[McNab (1994)] This also allows for the evolution of multiple sizes of flightless rails on the same island as the birds diversify to fill niches.
In addition to energy conservation, certain morphological traits also affect rail evolution. Rails have relatively small flight muscles and wings to begin with. In rails, the flight muscles make up only 12–17% of their overall body mass. This, in combination with their terrestrial habits and behavioral flightlessness, is a significant contributor to the rail's remarkably fast loss of flight; as few as 125,000 years were needed for the Laysan rail
The Laysan rail or Laysan crake (''Zapornia palmeri'') was a flightless bird endemic to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Northwest Hawaiian Island of Laysan. This small island was and still is an important seabird colony, and sustained a num ...
to lose the power of flight and evolve the reduced, stubby wings only useful to keep balance when running quickly. Indeed, some argue that measuring the evolution of flightlessness in rails in generations rather than millennia might be possible.
Another factor that contributes to the occurrence of the flightless state is a climate that does not necessitate seasonal long-distance migration; this is evidenced by the tendency to evolve flightlessness at a much greater occurrence in tropical islands than in temperate or polar islands.[McNab 2002]
It is paradoxical, since rails appear loath to fly, that the evolution of flightless rails would necessitate high dispersal to isolated islands.[McNab and Ellis 2006] Nonetheless, three species of small-massed rails, '' Gallirallus philippensis'', '' Porphyrio porphyrio'', and '' Porzana tabuensis'', exhibit a persistently high ability to disperse long distances among tropic Pacific islands, though only the latter two gave rise to flightless endemic species throughout the Pacific Basin.[Kirchman 2012] In examining the phylogeny of ''G. philippensis'', although the species is clearly polyphyletic (it has more than one ancestral species), it is not the ancestor of most of its flightless descendants, revealing that the flightless condition evolved in rails before speciation was complete.
A consequence of lowered energy expenditure in flightless island rails has also been associated with evolution of their "tolerance" and "approachability". For example, the (non-Rallidae) Corsican blue tits exhibit lower aggression and reduced territorial defense behaviors than do their mainland European counterparts, but this tolerance may be limited to close relatives. The resulting kin-selecting altruistic phenomena reallocate resources to produce fewer young that are more competitive and would benefit the population as an entirety, rather than many young that would exhibit less fitness. Unfortunately, with the human occupation of most islands in the past 5,000 to 35,000 years, selection has undoubtedly reversed the tolerance into a wariness of humans and predators, causing species unequipped for the change to become susceptible to extinction.
Behaviour and ecology
In general, members of the Rallidae are omnivorous generalists. Many species eat invertebrate
Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...
s, as well as fruit or seedlings. A few species are primarily herbivorous
A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically evolved to feed on plants, especially upon vascular tissues such as foliage, fruits or seeds, as the main component of its diet. These more broadly also encompass animals that eat n ...
. The calls of Rallidae species vary and are often quite loud. Some are whistle-like or squeak-like, while others seem unbirdlike.[Horsfall & Robinson (2003): p. 207] Loud calls are useful in dense vegetation, or at night where seeing another member of the species is difficult. Some calls are territorial
A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, belonging or connected to a particular country, person, or animal.
In international politics, a territory is usually a geographic area which has not been granted the powers of self-government, ...
.
The most typical family members occupy dense vegetation
Vegetation is an assemblage of plants and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular Taxon, taxa, life forms, structure, Spatial ecology, spatial extent, or any other specific Botany, botanic ...
in damp environments near lake
A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...
s, swamp
A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...
s, or river
A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...
s. Reed bed
A reedbed or reed bed is a natural habitat found in floodplains, waterlogged depressions and
estuaries. Reedbeds are part of a succession from young reeds colonising open water or wet ground through a gradation of increasingly dry ground. As ...
s are a particularly favoured habitat. Those that migrate do so at night.
Most nest
A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold Egg (biology), eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of ...
in dense vegetation. In general, they are shy, secretive, and difficult to observe. Most species walk and run vigorously on strong legs, and have long toes that are well adapted to soft, uneven surfaces. They tend to have short, rounded wings, and although they are generally weak fliers, they are, nevertheless, capable of covering long distances. Island species often become 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 ...
, and many of them are now 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 ...
following the introduction of terrestrial predators such as cat
The cat (''Felis catus''), also referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the ...
s, foxes, weasel
Weasels are mammals of the genus ''Mustela'' of the family Mustelidae. The genus ''Mustela'' includes the least weasels, polecats, stoats, ferrets, and European mink. Members of this genus are small, active predators, with long and slend ...
s, mongoose
A mongoose is a small terrestrial carnivorous mammal belonging to the family Herpestidae. This family has two subfamilies, the Herpestinae and the Mungotinae. The Herpestinae comprises 23 living species that are native to southern Europe, A ...
s, rat
Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents. Species of rats are found throughout the order Rodentia, but stereotypical rats are found in the genus ''Rattus''. Other rat genera include '' Neotoma'' (pack rats), '' Bandicota'' (bandicoo ...
s, and pigs.
Many reedbed species are secretive (apart from loud calls), crepuscular
In zoology, a crepuscular animal is one that is active primarily during the twilight period, being matutinal (active during dawn), vespertine (biology), vespertine/vespertinal (active during dusk), or both. This is distinguished from diurnalit ...
, and have laterally flattened bodies. In the Old World
The "Old World" () is a term for Afro-Eurasia coined by Europeans after 1493, when they became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia in the Eastern Hemisphere, previously ...
, long-billed species tend to be called rails and short-billed species crakes. North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
n species are normally called rails irrespective of bill length. The smallest of these is Swinhoe's rail, at and 25 g. The larger species are also sometimes given other names. The black coots are more adapted to open water than their relatives, and some other large species are called gallinules and swamphens. The largest of this group is the takahē
The South Island takahē (''Porphyrio hochstetteri'') is a Flightless bird, flightless swamphen indigenous to New Zealand and the largest living member of the Rail (bird), rail family. It is often known by the abbreviated name takahē, whic ...
, at and .
The rails have suffered disproportionally from human changes to the environment, and an estimated several hundred species of island rails have become extinct because of this. Several island species of rails remain endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...
, and conservation organisations and governments continue to work to prevent their extinction.
Reproduction
The breeding behaviors of many Rallidae species are poorly understood or unknown. Most are thought to be monogamous
Monogamy ( ) is a relationship of two individuals in which they form a mutual and exclusive intimate partnership. Having only one partner at any one time, whether for life or serial monogamy, contrasts with various forms of non-monogamy (e.g. ...
, although polygyny
Polygyny () is a form of polygamy entailing the marriage of a man to several women. The term polygyny is from Neoclassical Greek πολυγυνία (); .
Incidence
Polygyny is more widespread in Africa than in any other continent. Some scholar ...
and polyandry
Polyandry (; ) is a form of polygamy in which a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time. Polyandry is contrasted with polygyny, involving one male and two or more females. If a marriage involves a plural number of "husbands and wives ...
have been reported.[Horsfall & Robinson (2003): pp. 209–210] Most often, they lay five to 10 eggs. Clutch
A clutch is a mechanical device that allows an output shaft to be disconnected from a rotating input shaft. The clutch's input shaft is typically attached to a motor, while the clutch's output shaft is connected to the mechanism that does th ...
es as small as one or as large as 15 eggs are known. Egg clutches may not always hatch at the same time. Chicks become mobile after a few days. They often depend on their parents until fledging, which happens around 1 month old.
Rallidae and humans
Some larger, more abundant rails are hunted and their eggs collected for food.[Horsfall & Robinson (2003): p. 211] The Wake Island rail was hunted to extinction by the starving Japanese garrison after the island was cut off from supply during World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. At least two species, the common moorhen
The common moorhen (''Gallinula chloropus''), also known as the waterhen, is a bird species in the Rail (bird), rail family (Rallidae). It is distributed across many parts of the Old World, across Africa, Europe, and Asia. It lives around well-ve ...
and the American purple gallinule, have been considered pests
PESTS was an anonymous American activist group formed in 1986 to critique racism, tokenism, and exclusion in the art world. PESTS produced newsletters, posters, and other print material highlighting examples of discrimination in gallery represent ...
.
Threats and conservation
Due to their tendencies towards flightlessness, many island species have been unable to cope with introduced species. The most dramatic human-caused extinctions occurred in the Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...
as people colonised the islands of Melanesia
Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from New Guinea in the west to the Fiji Islands in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea.
The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Vanu ...
, Polynesia
Polynesia ( , ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in ...
, and Micronesia
Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of approximately 2,000 small islands in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: Maritime Southeast Asia to the west, Poly ...
, during which an estimated 750–1800 species of birds became extinct, half of which were rails. Some species that came close to extinction, such as the Lord Howe woodhen, and the takahē, have made modest recoveries due to the efforts of conservation organisations. The Guam rail came perilously close to extinction when brown tree snakes were introduced to Guam
Guam ( ; ) is an island that is an Territories of the United States, organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. Guam's capital is Hagåtña, Guam, Hagåtña, and the most ...
, but some of the last remaining individuals were taken into captivity and are breeding well, though attempts at reintroduction have met with mixed results.
Systematics and evolution
The family Rallidae was introduced (as Rallia) by the French polymath
A polymath or polyhistor is an individual whose knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Polymaths often prefer a specific context in which to explain their knowledge, ...
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (; 22 October 178318 September 1840) was a French early 19th-century polymath born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and self-educated in France. He traveled as a young man in the United States, ult ...
in 1815.
The family has traditionally been grouped with two families of larger birds, the cranes and bustards, as well as several smaller families of usually "primitive" midsized amphibious birds, to make up the order Gruiformes. The alternative Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, which has been widely accepted in America, raises the family to ordinal level as the Ralliformes. Given uncertainty about gruiform monophyly
In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria:
# the grouping contains its own most recent comm ...
, this may or may not be correct; it certainly seems more justified than most of the Sibley-Ahlquist proposals. However, such a group would probably also include the Heliornithidae (finfoots and sungrebes), an exclusively tropical
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...
group that is somewhat convergent with grebe
Grebes () are aquatic diving birds in the order (biology), order Podicipediformes (). Grebes are widely distributed freshwater birds, with some species also found in sea, marine habitats during Bird migration, migration and winter. Most grebes f ...
s, and usually united with the rails in the Ralli.
The cladogram
A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...
below showing the phylogeny of the living and recently extinct Rallidae is mostly based on a study by Juan Garcia-R and collaborators published in 2020. The position of the chestnut-headed crake (''Anurolimnas castaneiceps'') and the arrangement in the tribe Laterallini is based on the study by Emiliano Depino and collaborators that was published in 2023. The genera and number of species are taken from the list maintained by Frank Gill, Pamela Rasmussen and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee
The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology. It links basic and applied research and nurtures education and outreach activities. Specifically, the IOU organizes and funds global co ...
(IOC). The names of the subfamilies and tribes are those proposed by Jeremy Kirchman and collaborators in 2021.
Extant genera
The list maintained on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee
The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology. It links basic and applied research and nurtures education and outreach activities. Specifically, the IOU organizes and funds global co ...
(IOC) contains 153 species divided into 43 genera.[ For more detail, see List of rail species.
* ''Canirallus'' – grey-throated rail
* ''Anurolimnas'' – chestnut-headed crake
* '' Mustelirallus'' – (4 species)
* '' Pardirallus'' (3 species)
* ''Amaurolimnas'' – uniform crake
* '' Aramides'' – wood rails (8 species)
* '' Rallus'' – typical rails (14 species)
* ''Crecopsis'' – African crake
* ''Rougetius'' – Rouget's rail
* '' Dryolimnas'' – (1 living species, 1 recently extinct)
* ''Crex'' – ]corn crake
The corn crake, corncrake or landrail (''Crex crex'') is a bird in the rail family. It breeds in Europe and Asia as far east as western China, and migrates to Africa for the Northern Hemisphere's winter. It is a medium-sized crake with buff ...
* ''Aramidopsis'' – snoring rail
* '' Lewinia'' – (4 species)
* ''Aptenorallus'' – Calayan rail
The Calayan rail (''Aptenorallus calayanensis'') is a flightless bird of the rail, moorhen, and coot family (Rallidae) that inhabits Calayan Island in the Philippines. It is the only member of the genus ''Aptenorallus''. Though well known to na ...
* ''Habroptila'' – invisible rail
* '' Gallirallus'' – weka
* ''Eulabeornis'' – chestnut rail
* '' Cabalus'' – (1 possibly extinct species, 1 recently extinct)
* '' Hypotaenidia'' – Austropacific rails (8 living species, 4 recently extinct)
* ''Porphyriops'' – spot-flanked gallinule
* '' Porzana'' – (3 species)
* '' Tribonyx'' – nativehens (2 species)
* ''Paragallinula'' – lesser moorhen
* '' Gallinula'' – moorhens (5 living species, 2 recently extinct)
* '' Fulica'' – coots (10 living species, one recently extinct)
* '' Porphyrio'' – swamphens and purple gallinules (10 living species, 2 recently extinct)
* '' Rufirallus'' – (5 species)
* '' Coturnicops'' – (2 species)
* '' Laterallus'' – (11 species)
* ''Zapornia
''Zapornia'' is a recently revalidated genus of birds in the rail family Rallidae; it was included in ''Porzana'' for much of the late 20th century.Garcia-R, Juan C.; Gibb, Gillian C. & Trewick, Steve A. (2014): Deep global evolutionary radiation ...
'' – (10 living species, 5 recently extinct)
* ''Rallina
''Rallina'' is a genus of bird in the rail family, Rallidae. It contains four species found in forest and marshland in Asia and Australasia. They are 18–34 cm long and mainly chestnut or brown, often with black and white markings.
Four Af ...
'' – (4 species)
* '' Gymnocrex'' – (3 species)
* ''Himantornis'' – Nkulengu rail
* ''Megacrex'' – New Guinea flightless rail
* ''Poliolimnas'' – white-browed crake
* ''Aenigmatolimnas'' – striped crake
* ''Gallicrex'' – watercock
* '' Amaurornis'' – bush-hens (5 species)
Additionally, many prehistoric rails of extant genera are known only from fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...
or subfossil remains, such as the Ibiza rail (''Rallus eivissensis''). These have not been listed here; see the genus accounts and the articles on fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...
and Late Quaternary prehistoric birds
Late Quaternary prehistoric birds are Bird, avian taxa that became extinct during the Late Quaternary – the Late Pleistocene or Early Holocene – and before recorded history, specifically before they could be studied alive by orni ...
for these species.
Recently extinct genera
*''Mundia'' – Ascension crake (recently extinct; flightless, single island, lost by early 1800s to introduced cats and rats)
* ''Aphanocrex'' – Saint Helena rail (recently extinct; flightless, single island, lost by 1500s to introduced cats and rats)
*''Diaphorapteryx'' – Hawkins's rail (recently extinct; flightless, two islands, lost between 1500 and 1700 to overhunting)
*''Aphanapteryx'' – Red rail (recently extinct; flightless, single island, lost by 1700 to overhunting and introduced pigs, cats and rats)
* ''Erythromachus'' – Rodrigues rail (recently extinct; flightless, single island, lost by 1760 to overhunting, destruction of habitat by tortoise hunters, and introduced cats)
*Genus '' Cabalus'' – Chatham rail and New Caledonian rail (sometimes included in ''Gallirallus''; extinct around 1900)
*Genus ''Capellirallus'' – Snipe-rail (recently extinct; flightless, single island, lost by no later than 1400s to introduced rats)
*Genus ''Vitirallus'' – Viti Levu rail (recently extinct; flightless, single island, lost by no later than early Holocene
The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...
)
*Genus ''Hovacrex'' – Hova gallinule (recently extinct; flight ability uncertain, single island, lost by no later than Late Pleistocene
The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division ...
)
The undescribed Fernando de Noronha rail, genus and species undetermined, survived to historic times. The extinct genus '' Nesotrochis'' from the Greater Antilles was formerly considered to be a rail, but based on DNA evidence is now known to be an independent lineage of gruiform more closely related to Sarothruridae
Sarothruridae is a family of small- to medium-sized ground-living birds found mostly in Madagascar and sub-Saharan Africa, with the genus ''Rallicula'' being restricted to New Guinea and the Moluccas. The species in this family were once consider ...
and adzebills.
Fossil record
Fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...
species of long-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 ...
prehistoric
Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...
rails are richly documented from the well-researched formations of Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
and North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
, as well from the less comprehensively studied strata elsewhere:
*Genus ''Eocrex'' (Wasatch Early Eocene of Steamboat Springs, USA; Late Eocene – ?Oligocene of Isfara, Tadzhikistan)
*Genus ''Palaeorallus'' (Wasatch Early Eocene of Wyoming, USA)
*Genus ''Parvirallus'' (Early – Middle Eocene of England)
*Genus ''Aletornis'' (Bridger Middle Eocene of Uinta County, USA) – includes ''Protogrus''
*Genus ''Fulicaletornis'' (Bridger Middle Eocene of Henry's Fork, USA)
*Genus ''Latipons'' (Middle Eocene of Lee-on-Solent, England)
*Genus ''Ibidopsis'' (Hordwell Late Eocene of Hordwell, UK)
*Genus ''Quercyrallus'' (Late Eocene -? Late Oligocene of France)
*Genus ''Belgirallus'' (Early Oligocene of WC Europe)
*Genus ''Rallicrex'' (Corbula Middle/Late Oligocene of Kolzsvár, Romania)
*Rallidae gen. et sp. indet. (Late Oligocene of Billy-Créchy, France)
*Genus ''Palaeoaramides'' (Late Oligocene/Early Miocene – Late Miocene of France)
*Genus '' Rhenanorallus'' (Late Oligocene/Early Miocene of Mainz Basin, Germany)
*Genus ''Paraortygometra'' (Late Oligocene/?Early Miocene -? Middle Miocene of France) – includes ''Microrallus''
*Genus '' Australlus'' (Late Oligocene – Middle Miocene of NW Queensland, Australia)
*Genus ''Pararallus'' (Late Oligocene? – Late Miocene of C Europe) – possibly belongs in ''Palaeoaramides''
*Genus ''Litorallus'' (Early Miocene of New Zealand)
*Rallidae gen. et sp. indet. (Bathans Early/Middle Miocene of Otago, New Zealand)
*Rallidae gen. et sp. indet. (Bathans Early/Middle Miocene of Otago, New Zealand)
*Genus ''Miofulica'' (Anversian Black Sand Middle Miocene of Antwerp, Belgium)
*Genus ''Miorallus'' (Middle Miocene of Sansan, France -? Late Miocene of Rudabánya, Hungary)
*Genus ''Youngornis'' (Shanwang Middle Miocene of Linqu, China)
*Rallidae gen. et sp. indet. (Sajóvölgyi Middle Miocene of Mátraszõlõs, Hungary)
*Rallidae gen. et sp. indet. (Middle Miocene of Grive-Saint-Alban, France)
*Rallidae gen. et sp. indet. (Late Miocene of Lemoyne Quarry, USA)
*Rallidae gen. et sp. indet. UMMP V55013-55014; UMMP V55012/V45750/V45746 (Rexroad Late Pliocene of Saw Rock Canyon, USA)
*Rallidae gen. et sp. indet. UMMP V29080 (Rexroad Late Pliocene of Fox Canyon, USA)
*Genus ''Creccoides'' (Blanco Late Pliocene/Early Pleistocene of Crosby County, USA)
*Rallidae gen. et sp. indet. (Bermuda, West Atlantic)
*Rallidae gen. et sp. indet. (formerly '' Fulica podagrica'') (Late Pleistocene of Barbados)
*Genus '' Pleistorallus'' (mid-Pleistocene New Zealand). The holotype
A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...
of ''Pleistorallus flemingi'' is in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. Usually known as Te Papa ( Māori for ' the treasure box'), it opened in 1998 after the merging of the National Museum of New Zealand ...
.
Doubtfully placed here
These taxa may or may not have been rails:
* Genus '' Ludiortyx'' (Late Eocene) – includes ''"Tringa" hoffmanni'', ''"Palaeortyx" blanchardi'', ''"P." hoffmanni''
* Genus ''Telecrex'' (Irdin Manha Late Eocene of Chimney Butte, China)
* Genus '' Amitabha'' (Bridger middle Eocene of Forbidden City, USA) – phasianid?
* Genus ''Palaeocrex'' (Early Oligocene of Trigonias Quarry, USA)
* Genus ''Rupelrallus'' (Early Oligocene of Germany)
* Neornithes incerta sedis (Late Oligocene of Riversleigh, Australia)
* Genus ''Euryonotus'' (Pleistocene of Argentina)
The presumed scolopacid wader
245px, A flock of Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots
Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflats in order to foraging, ...
''Limosa gypsorum'' (Montmartre Late Eocene of France) is sometimes considered a rail and then placed in the genus ''Montirallus''.[ Olson (1985), Mlíkovský (2002)]
See also
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* List of Gruiformes by population
References
External links
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{{Authority control
Extant Eocene first appearances
Rails
Taxa named by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque