Rallus

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Rallus
Rallus aquaticus 4 (Marek Szczepanek).jpg
Water rail
Rallus aquaticus
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Gruiformes
Family: Rallidae
Genus: Rallus
Linnaeus, 1758
Type species
Rallus aquaticus [1]
Linnaeus, 1758
Species

See list

Synonyms

Epirallus Miller, 1942

Ridgway's rail (Rallus obsoletus) Rallus obsoletus - San Francisco Bay, 2004.jpg
Ridgway's rail (Rallus obsoletus)

Rallus is a genus of wetland birds of the rail family. Sometimes, the genera Lewinia and Gallirallus are included in it. Six of the species are found in the Americas, and the three species found in Eurasia, Africa and Madagascar are very closely related to each other, suggesting they are descended from a single invasion of a New World ancestor. [2]

Contents

These are slim, long-billed rails with slender legs. Their laterally flattened bodies are an adaptation to life in wet reedbeds and marshes, enabling them to slip easily through the dense semi-aquatic vegetation. Typically these birds have streaked brown upperparts, blue-grey on the face or breast, and barred flanks. Only the African rail has a plain back, and the plain-flanked rail lacks any blue-grey in its plumage and has no flank bars. [2]

Three endemic South American species are endangered by habitat loss, and the Madagascar rail is becoming rare.

Taxonomy

The genus Rallus was erected in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae . [3] The type species was subsequently designated as the water rail (Rallus aquaticus). [4] The genus name Rallus comes from the pre-binomial Latin name Rallus aquaticus for the water rail used by English ornithologist Francis Willughby in 1676, [5] and by the English naturalist Eleazar Albin in 1731. [6] The precise etymology of the word Rallus is uncertain. [7]

Species

The genus contains 14 extant species: [8]

ImageCommon NameScientific nameDistribution
Rallus aequatorialis Keulemans.jpg Ecuadorian rail Rallus aequatorialissouthwestern Colombia to southwestern Peru
Rallus antarcticus.jpg Austral rail Rallus antarcticusArgentina and Chile
Rallus aquaticus 2 (Marek Szczepanek) cropped.jpg Water rail Rallus aquaticusEurope, Asia and North Africa
African Rail, Rallus caerulescens at Marievale Nature Reserve, Gauteng, South Africa (20626467274).jpg African rail Rallus caerulescensfrom Ethiopia to South Africa
Clapper Rail, Crisfield, Maryland 1.jpg Clapper rail Rallus crepitanseastern U.S., the Gulf of Mexico, eastern Mexico, some Caribbean islands, and south through eastern Central America
Blending in.jpg King rail Rallus eleganssouthern United States and Mexico; in Canada, they are found in southern Ontario
Eastern Water Rail.jpg Brown-cheeked rail Rallus indicusnorthern Mongolia, eastern Siberia, northeast China, Korea and northern Japan.
Rallus limicola -Cloisters Park, Morro Bay, California, USA-8 (1).jpg Virginia rail Rallus limicolasouthern United States and Central America
Rallus longirostris - 1700-1880 - Print - Iconographia Zoologica - Special Collections University of Amsterdam - UBA01 IZ17500025.tif Mangrove rail Rallus longirostrisnortheast Colombia, northwest Venezuela, Brazil, Trinidad
Rallus madagascariensis.jpg Madagascar rail Rallus madagascariensisMadagascar
Ridgway's Rail (16619348990).jpg Ridgway's rail Rallus obsoletussoutheastern California and southern Arizona, to northwestern Mexico
Rallus semiplumbeus.jpg Bogotá rail Rallus semiplumbeusColombia
Mexican Rail (Rallus tenuirostris) - Bird notes (1911).jpg Aztec rail Rallus tenuirostrisMexico
Plain-flanked rail Rallus wetmoreiVenezuela

Fossil record

Life restoration of the five now-extinct species from the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira Macaronesian rails.jpg
Life restoration of the five now-extinct species from the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira

Formerly in Rallus

"R." sumiderensis apparently refers to prehistoric remains of the Zapata rail (Cyanolimnas cerverai).

References

  1. "Rallidae". aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 2023-07-27.
  2. 1 2 Taylor & van Perlo (1998)
  3. Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae:Laurentii Salvii. p. 153.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  4. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1934). Check-list of Birds of the World. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 157.
  5. Willughby, Francis (1676). Ornithologiae libri tres (in Latin). London: John Martyn. p. 234.
  6. Albin, Eleazar; Derham, William (1731). A Natural History of Birds : Illustrated with a Hundred and One Copper Plates, Curiously Engraven from the Life. Vol. 1. London: Printed for the author and sold by William Innys. p. 73.
  7. Jobling, J.A. (2019). del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J.; Christie, D.A.; de Juana, E. (eds.). "Rallus". Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive: Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology. Lynx Edicions. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  8. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2019). "Flufftails, finfoots, rails, trumpeters, cranes, limpkin". World Bird List Version 9.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
  9. Gál et al. (1998–1999)
  10. Alcover, Josep Antoni; Pieper, Harald; Pereira, Fernando; Rando, Juan Carlos (2016-03-01). "Rallus nanus nomen novum: a replacement name for Rallus minutus Alcover et al. 2015". Zootaxa. 4085 (1): 141–142. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4085.1.8. ISSN   1175-5334. PMID   27394294.

References