Rails are a large, cosmopolitan family of small- to medium-sized terrestrial and/or semi-amphibious birds. 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 habitats, some being semi-aquatic like waterfowl, but many more are wading birds or shorebirds. The ideal rail habitats are marsh areas, including rice paddies, and flooded fields or open forest. They are especially fond of dense vegetation for nesting. The rail family is found in every terrestrial habitat with the exception of dry desert, polar or freezing regions, and alpine areas. Members of Rallidae occur on every continent except Antarctica. Numerous unique island species are known.
Rapa, also called Rapa Iti, or "Little Rapa", to distinguish it from Easter Island, whose Polynesian name is Rapa Nui, is the largest and only inhabited island of the Bass Islands in French Polynesia. An older name for the island is Oparo. The total land area including offshore islets is 40.5 km2 (15.6 sq mi). As of the 2017 census, Rapa had a population of 507. The island's highest point is at 650 metres (2,130 ft) elevation at Mont Perahu. Its main town is Ahuréi. The inhabitants of Rapa Iti speak their own Polynesian language called the Rapa language.
Astolfo is a fictional character in the Matter of France where he is one of Charlemagne's paladins. He is the son of Otto, the King of England, and is a cousin to Orlando and Rinaldo, and a descendant of Charles Martel. While Astolfo's name appeared in the Old French chanson de gesteThe Four Sons of Aymon, his first major appearance was in the anonymous early fourteenth-century Franco-Italian epic poem La Prise de Pampelune. He was subsequently a major character in Italian Renaissance romance epics, such as Morgante by Luigi Pulci, Orlando Innamorato by Matteo Maria Boiardo, and Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto.
Gallirallus is a genus of rails that live in the Australasian-Pacific region. The genus is characterised by an ability to colonise relatively small and isolated islands and thereafter to evolve flightless forms, many of which became extinct following Polynesian settlement.
The Tahiti rail, Tahitian red-billed rail, or Pacific red-billed rail is an extinct species of rail that lived on Tahiti. It was first recorded during James Cook's second voyage around the world (1772–1775), on which it was illustrated by Georg Forster and described by Johann Reinhold Forster. No specimens have been preserved. As well as the documentation by the Forsters, there have been claims that the bird also existed on the nearby island of Mehetia. The Tahiti rail appears to have been closely related to, and perhaps derived from, the buff-banded rail, and has also been historically confused with the Tongan subspecies of that bird.
The buff-banded rail is a distinctively coloured, highly dispersive, medium-sized rail of the rail family, Rallidae. This species comprises several subspecies found throughout much of Australasia and the south-west Pacific region, including the Philippines, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and numerous smaller islands, covering a range of latitudes from the tropics to the subantarctic.
The Chatham rail is an extinct flightless species of bird in the family Rallidae. It was endemic to Chatham, Mangere and Pitt Islands, in the Chatham archipelago of New Zealand. The Chatham rail was first discovered on Mangere in 1871, and 26 specimens collected there are known from museum collections. Its Māori name was "mātirakahu".
Dieffenbach's rail, known in the Moriori language as meriki or mehoriki, is an extinct flightless species of bird from the family Rallidae. It was endemic to the Chatham Islands.
The snipe-rail is an extinct flightless rail endemic to the North Island of New Zealand. The species' name is derived from the Karamu Cave 21 kilometres (13 mi) from Hamilton where the holotype was discovered in 1954.
The Huahine rail was a species of bird in the family Rallidae. It was a medium-sized Gallirallus rail endemic to Huahine in the Society Islands of French Polynesia. It is known only from subfossil remains found at the Fa'ahia archaeological site on the island. Fa'ahia is an early Polynesian occupation site with radiocarbon dates ranging from 700 CE to 1200 CE. The rail is only one of a suite of birds found at the site which became extinct either locally or globally following human occupation of the island.
The Tubuai rail is an extinct species of flightless bird in the Rallidae, or rail family.
The Tahuata rail is an extinct species of flightless bird in the Rallidae, or rail family.
The Ua Huka rail is an extinct species of flightless bird in the Rallidae, or rail family.
The Nuku Hiva rail is an extinct species of flightless bird in the Rallidae, or rail family.
The Niue rail is an extinct species of flightless bird in the Rallidae, or rail family.
The Mangaia rail is an extinct species of flightless bird in the rail family, Rallidae.
The Mangaia crake is an extinct species of flightless bird in the rail family, Rallidae.
The ʻEua rail is an extinct species of flightless bird in the Rallidae, or rail family. It was described in 2005 from subfossil bones found on the island of ʻEua, in the Kingdom of Tonga of West Polynesia.
The Tongatapu rail was a species of bird in the family Rallidae. It was apparently native to the island of Tongatapu in the Kingdom of Tonga, in Polynesia in the south-west Pacific Ocean. It is known only from brief descriptions of a specimen, now lost, collected from Tongatapu in 1777 in the course of James Cook's third voyage to the Pacific, and from a contemporary illustration by Georg Forster.
