Jamaican wood rail | |
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Scientific classification ![]() | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Gruiformes |
Family: | Rallidae |
Genus: | Amaurolimnas |
Species: | |
Subspecies: | A. c. concolor |
Trinomial name | |
Amaurolimnas concolor concolor (P. H. Gosse, 1847) |
The Jamaican wood rail, also called the Jamaican uniform rail was a subspecies of the uniform rail found on Jamaica. It became extinct circa 1881. [1]
Jamaica is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning 10,990 square kilometres (4,240 sq mi) in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the fourth-largest island country in the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about 145 kilometres (90 mi) south of Cuba, and 191 kilometres (119 mi) west of Hispaniola.
The Jamaican wood rail was a reddish-brown bird some 10 inches in length. [1]
Although capable of flight, the Wood Rail was primarily a terrestrial bird, preferring to run to escape predators. It was originally widespread on the island, inhabiting swamps, jungle undergrowth and streambeds, to fairly high altitudes. [2]
The Jamaican wood rail was driven to extinction by the introduction of rats, cats and mongooses to Jamaica. [1] The last specimens of the bird were collected in 1881. [3]
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, Bandicota and Dipodomys.
The cat is a small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and often referred to as the domestic cat to distinguish it from wild members of the family. The cat is either a house cat or a farm cat, which are pets, or a feral cat, which ranges freely and avoids human contact. A house cat is valued by humans for companionship and for its ability to hunt rodents. About 60 cat breeds are recognized by various cat registries.
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Hasties Swamp is a national park in Queensland, Australia, 1,371 km northwest of Brisbane. The swamp is located several kilometers south of the town of Atherton in Far North Queensland. The main feature of the park is a seasonal wetland. Part of the swamp was first declared a national park on 5 April 1980.
Munga-Thirri National Park, formerly known as the Simpson Desert National Park, is the largest national park in Queensland, Australia, 1,495 km west of Brisbane. The park covers an area of more than 10,000 km2 in the Simpson Desert surrounding Poeppel Corner west of Birdsville and Bedourie in the Central West region of the state.
Allspice, also called pimento, Jamaica pimento, Jamaica pepper, pimenta, or myrtle pepper, is the dried unripe fruit of Pimenta dioica, a midcanopy tree native to the Greater Antilles, southern Mexico, and Central America, now cultivated in many warm parts of the world. The name "allspice" was coined as early as 1621 by the English, who thought it combined the flavour of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.
The rails, or Rallidae, are a large cosmopolitan family of small- to medium-sized, ground-living birds. The family exhibits considerable diversity and includes the crakes, coots, and gallinules. Many species are associated with wetlands, although the family is found in every terrestrial habitat except dry deserts, polar regions, and alpine areas above the snow line. Members of the Rallidae occur on every continent except Antarctica. Numerous island species are known. The most common rail habitats are marshland and dense forest. They are especially fond of dense vegetation.
The bird family Petroicidae includes 49 species in 19 genera. All are endemic to Australasia: New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and numerous Pacific Islands as far east as Samoa. For want of an accurate common name, the family is often called the Australasian robins. Within the family the species are known not only as robins but as scrub-robins and flyrobins. They are, however, only distantly related to the Old World family Muscicapidae and the monarch flycatchers (Monarchidae).
The water rail is a bird of the rail family which breeds in well-vegetated wetlands across Europe, Asia and North Africa. Northern and eastern populations are migratory, but this species is a permanent resident in the warmer parts of its breeding range. The adult is 23–28 cm (9–11 in) long, and, like other rails, has a body that is flattened laterally, allowing it easier passage through the reed beds it inhabits. It has mainly brown upperparts and blue-grey underparts, black barring on the flanks, long toes, a short tail and a long reddish bill. Immature birds are generally similar in appearance to the adults, but the blue-grey in the plumage is replaced by buff. The downy chicks are black, as with all rails. The former subspecies R. indicus, has distinctive markings and a call that is very different from the pig-like squeal of the western races, and is now usually split as a separate species, the brown-cheeked rail.
The king rail is a waterbird, the largest North American rail.
The New York and Long Island Traction Company was a street railway company in Queens and Nassau County, New York, United States. It was partially owned by a holding company for the Long Island Rail Road and partially by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company. The company operated from New York City east to Freeport, Hempstead, and Mineola.
Queens Village is a station on the Long Island Rail Road's Main Line, located between 218th Street and Springfield Boulevard, in the Queens Village neighborhood of Queens, New York City. It has two side platforms along the four-track line, and, except for one AM peak westbound train from East Williston on the Oyster Bay Branch, is served by Hempstead Branch trains only. Just east of the station is Queens Interlocking, a universal interlocking that splits the four-track line into two parallel two-track lines—the Main Line and Hempstead Branch—and controls the junction with the spur to Belmont Park. The station is elevated and the tracks leading in and out are on raised ground and only above the road at intersections.
Jamaica Race Course, also called the Jamaica Racetrack, was an American thoroughbred horse racing facility operated by the Metropolitan Jockey Club in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York. The 1 mile (1.6 km) track opened on April 27, 1903, a day which featured the inaugural running of the Excelsior Handicap. Eugene D. Wood, one of the founders and largest stockholder, served as its first president. Upon Wood's death in April 1924, Dr. Edward P. Kilroe was appointed president to replace him. The Wood Memorial Stakes is named in Eugene Wood's honor.
The uniform crake is a species of bird in the family Rallidae, the only member of the genus Amaurolimnas. It is found widely, but locally, in swampy forests and wetlands of southern Mexico, and Central and South America. A Jamaican subspecies, the Jamaican wood rail, is now extinct.
The grey-necked wood rail or grey-cowled wood rail is a species of bird in the family Rallidae, the rails. It lives primarily in the forests, mangroves, and swamps of Central and South America. Of the two subspecies, A. c. avicenniae is found in southeastern Brazil, while the nominate is found throughout the portion of the range not occupied by the other subspecies. The species as a whole is usually found at elevations from sea level to 2,000 metres (6,600 ft), although some have been found above that. This bird's large extent of occurrence along with its population is why it is considered to be least-concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In some places, it is occasionally hunted and kept for food.
The Madagascan wood rail, also known as the kioloides rail, is a species of bird in the family Sarothruridae. It is endemic to forests, often in wet areas, in northern and eastern Madagascar.
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Richmond Hill is a closed station on the Montauk Branch of the Long Island Rail Road in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Queens, New York City. The station is located at Myrtle Avenue and cuts diagonally from the intersection of Jamaica Avenue and Lefferts Boulevard through an unnumbered section of Hillside Avenue.
The Raunt was a former Long Island Rail Road station on the Rockaway Beach Branch. It had no address and no station house, because it was meant strictly as a dropping-off point for fishermen using a small island in Jamaica Bay. The station was located 1300 feet west of signal station "ER", and near the WU Tower. It was named for the channel on the south side of the island where it stood.
Igbo people in Jamaica were shipped by Europeans onto the island between the 18th and 19th centuries as enslaved labour on plantations. Igbo people constituted a large portion of the African population enslaved people in Jamaica. Some slave censuses detailed the large number of enslaved Igbo people on various plantations throughout the island on different dates throughout the 18th century. Their presence was a large part in forming Jamaican culture, Igbo cultural influence remains in language, dance, music, folklore, cuisine, religion and mannerisms. In Jamaica the Igbo were often referred to as Eboe or Ibo. There are a substantial number of Igbo language loanwords in Jamaican Patois, however the majority of African loanwords in Jamaican Patois are from the Akan language of modern-day Ghana. Igbo people mostly populated the northwestern section of the island.
Cedar Manor, originally named Power Place was a railroad station along the Atlantic Branch of the Long Island Rail Road, in Queens, New York City. The station opened as a small one-story frame station here in 1906, east of the track and north of what was then called Power Place, which was later renamed 114th Avenue, and finally renamed Linden Boulevard. Cedar Manor was a real estate development covering the neighborhood generally west and north of the crossing of the LIRR with New York Boulevard. Before World War I it was a signal stop only. The station was phased out on January 28, 1959 and the building was razed in February 1959 with grade elimination, and was discontinued as a station stop.