Hawaiian rail

Hawaiian rail
Light and dark form
Conservation status
Extinct (c.1884)  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Presumed Extinct (c.1884)  (NatureServe)[2]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Gruiformes
Family:	Rallidae
Genus:	Zapornia
Species:	†Z. sandwichensis
Binomial name
†Zapornia sandwichensis (Gmelin, 1789)[3]
Synonyms
Rallus sandwichensis Gmelin, 1789 Rallus obscurus Gmelin, 1789 Pennula millei (lapsus) Dole, 1878 Pennula millsi Pennula wilsoni Finsch, 1898 Pennula ecaudata King Porzana sandwichensis

The Hawaiian rail (Zapornia sandwichensis), Hawaiian spotted rail, or Hawaiian crake is an

.

Taxonomy

Considerable confusion has been created by the existence of two distinct forms. While it cannot be completely excluded that early specimens were collected on another island, only Oʻahu and Kauaʻi seem possible given the history of the specimens' collection, and only on the latter island is a similar-sized species now known to have once existed. However, the bones from Kauaʻi are in the upper size range of those found of sandwichensis, while the specimens of the lighter form are all of smaller birds.

This bird was only the size of a

.

The generally accepted theory is that the lighter birds represent immatures, and certainly only such specimens have been described as young birds (the Hanover specimen is labeled as "juvenile"), but since the exact collection localities are not known with sufficient detail, only DNA analysis could resolve this question, particularly since the recovered bone material can also be expected to yield analyzable DNA fragments.

At any rate, both light and dark birds are today treated as a single species, with five of the

Etymology

The native name for the bird was moho, said to refer to a small "bird that crows in the grass". The name iao or ʻiao was claimed to refer to a moho-like but smaller bird; it is not clear whether this bird was the distinctive lighter form or the extinct unnamed small rail (see below). The bird is referenced in the old Hawaiian proverb ʻAʻohe mea nāna e hoʻopuhili, he moho no ka lā makani which means roughly "nothing can blow him off course, he is like a moho in the wind"; it was used to indicate admiration for an undaunted or determined person (as the bird was unable to fly, it was not affected by the wind). This is not to be confused with the taxonomical name Moho, which are the ʻōʻō; also from Hawaiʻi and extinct, but completely unrelated birds.

Description

The first collections were of individuals of the lighter form, of which today 5^[

bones have also been recovered.

Habitat

It was a flightless bird that was apparently found in shrubland and secondary growth on abandoned fields and in times of danger had the habit of hiding in Polynesian rat burrows. Specimens are known or assumed to be from an area which roughly corresponds to the middle elevations of today's Puna district around the present settlement of Mountain View, below the primary rainforest.

Extinction

Specimens of the light form were collected in 1778 on the third Cook expedition; the dark form was supposedly not found at that time (but see above). Apparently, all or at least most specimens of the latter were procured over a short period around 1860 by James D. Mills, the last one in 1864. The last reliable sight record was in 1884, with a doubtful one in 1893; a dedicated search in 1887 failed to find the bird, but as it was rather cryptic, this cannot be taken as unequivocal proof that it was completely extinct by then.

As neither the

[6] After that, the few specimens that were collected suggest it was not extensively hunted even after the kapu were abolished.

References