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.
The Lord Howe woodhen also known as the Lord Howe Island woodhen or Lord Howe (Island) rail, is a flightless bird of the rail family, (Rallidae). It is endemic to Lord Howe Island off the Australian coast. It is currently classified as endangered by the IUCN.
The Guam rail is a species of flightless bird, endemic to the United States territory of Guam, where it is known locally as the Ko'ko' bird. The Guam rail disappeared from southern Guam in the early 1970s, and was extirpated from the entire island by the late 1980s. This species is now being bred in captivity by the Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources on Guam, and at some mainland U.S. zoos. Since 1995, more than 100 rails have been introduced on the island of Rota in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, in an attempt to establish a wild breeding colony. Although at least one chick resulted from these efforts, feral cat predation and accidental deaths have been extremely high. In 2010, 16 birds were released onto Cocos Island, with 12 more being introduced in 2012. In 2019, the species became only the second bird after the California condor to be reclassified by the IUCN from extinct in the wild to critically endangered.
Vavaʻu is an island group, consisting of one large island and 40 smaller ones, in Tonga. It is part of Vavaʻu District, which includes several other individual islands. According to tradition, the Maui god created both Tongatapu and Vavaʻu, but put a little more effort into the former. Vavaʻu rises 204 m (669 ft) above sea level at Mount Talau. The capital is Neiafu, situated at the Port of Refuge.
The extinct Wake Island rail was a flightless rail and the only native land bird on the Pacific atoll of Wake. It was found on the islands of Wake and Wilkes, but not on Peale, which is separated from the others by a channel of about 100 meters. It was hunted to extinction during World War II.
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.
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 bar-winged rail is an extinct species of bird in the family Rallidae. It was endemic to Fiji and was last collected ca 1890 in Viti Levu. The species was identified from twelve 19th century specimens, some of which are known to be in Boston, London and New York. The last unconfirmed sighting of this bird was in 1973.
Woodford's rail is a species of bird in the family Rallidae.
David William Steadman is a paleontologist and ornithologist, and serves as the curator of ornithology at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida.
The oceanic eclectus is an extinct parrot species which occurred on Tonga, Vanuatu and possibly on Fiji. Its only living relative is the eclectus parrot, which has proportionally larger wings than the oceanic eclectus parrot. The fossil material unearthed in November 1989 in Late Pleistocene and Holocene deposits on 'Eua, Lifuka, 'Uiha and Vanuatu and described in 2006 by David William Steadman include a complete femur, five radii, a quadrate bone, a mandible, a coracoid, two sterna, two humeri, two ulnae, two tibiotarsi, a carpometacarpus, a tarsometatarsus, and three pedal phalanges.
The New Zealand goose is a bird of the extinct genus Cnemiornis of the family Anatidae, subfamily Anserinae. The genus, endemic to New Zealand, consisted of two species: the North Island goose, C. gracilis and the South Island goose C. calcitrans.
The Tongan tropical moist forests is a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion that includes the Tonga archipelago and Niue.
The Bonin greenfinch, also known as the Ogasawara greenfinch, is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae that is endemic to the Ogasawara Islands of Japan, where it is found on the Bonin Islands and Volcano Islands. It was formerly considered a subspecies of the grey-capped greenfinch and some authorities consider it as such, but a 2020 analysis found it likely to represent a distinct species that diverged from C. sinica about 1.06 million years ago, and the International Ornithological Congress now recognizes it as such, making it the eleventh endemic species in Japan. There are fewer than 400 individuals in the population and it is considered critically endangered by the Japanese government, necessitating protection. According to the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology, as of December 2021, the Ogaswara greenfinch is Japan's most endangered bird.
The Tongan tooth-billed pigeon, is an extinct species of pigeon that was endemic to Tonga that lived in the Quaternary period. A related species, the tooth-billed pigeon, is the only known living species in its genus.
The Norfolk Island rail is an extinct species of bird that lived on Norfolk Island in Australia. It was first identified by an illustration from the Album of Watercolour Drawings of Australian Natural History. It is important to note that the species has not been officially described by science.
