Rail (bird)

"Rail" is the anglicized respelling of the French râle, from Old French rasle. It is named from its harsh cry, in Vulgar Latin *rascula, from Latin rādere ("to scrape"). ==Morphology==

(Porphyrio hochstetteri) from behind, showing the short, soft, and fluffy remiges typical of flightless rails 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); in others, it may be short and wide (as in the coots), or massive (as in the purple gallinules). A few coots and gallinules have a frontal shield, which is a fleshy, rearward extension of the upper bill. The most complex frontal shield is found in the horned coot. Rails exhibit very little sexual dimorphism in either plumage or size. Two exceptions are the watercock (Gallicrex cinerea) and the little crake (Zapornia parva). 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. 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 makes intense demands, with the keel and flight muscles taking up to 40% of a bird's weight. For this reason, flightlessness makes it easier to survive and colonize an island where resources may be limited. 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. as few as 125,000 years were needed for the Laysan rail 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. (Fulica americana) skeleton on display at the Museum of Osteology. It is paradoxical, since rails appear loath to fly, that the evolution of flightless rails would necessitate high dispersal to isolated islands. 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, 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. 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 invertebrates, as well as fruit or seedlings. A few species are primarily herbivorous. Loud calls are useful in dense vegetation, or at night where seeing another member of the species is difficult. Some calls are territorial. Most often, they lay five to 10 eggs. Clutches 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==

is an example of an island species that has been badly affected by introduced species. Some larger, more abundant rails are hunted and their eggs collected for food. 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. At least two species, the common moorhen and the American purple gallinule, have been considered pests. 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, 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 Constantine Samuel Rafinesque 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, 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 group that is somewhat convergent with grebes, and usually united with the rails in the Ralli. The cladogram 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 taxonomy published by Avilist. The names of the subfamilies and tribes are those proposed by Jeremy Kirchman and collaborators in 2021. }} Extant genera The list maintained by the AviList team contains 148 species divided into 38 genera. and North America, 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 of Pleistorallus flemingi is in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. 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 Limosa gypsorum (Montmartre Late Eocene of France) is sometimes considered a rail and then placed in the genus Montirallus. ==See also==