Red rail
Red rail | |
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Painting of a possibly stuffed specimen by Jacob Hoefnagel, ca. 1610 | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Gruiformes |
Family: | Rallidae |
Genus: | †Aphanapteryx Frauenfeld , 1868
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Species: | †A. bonasia
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Binomial name | |
†Aphanapteryx bonasia (de Sélys-Longchamps, 1848)
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Location of Mauritius (in blue) | |
Synonyms | |
List
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The red rail (Aphanapteryx bonasia) is an
This bird is believed to have fed on
Taxonomy
The red rail was first mentioned as "Indian river woodcocks" by the Dutch ships’ pilot Heyndrick Dircksz Jolinck in 1598.
The name Apterornis had already been used for a different extinct bird genus from
The German ornithologist
In 1865,
More fossils were later found by the French naturalist Theodore Sauzier, who had been commissioned to explore the "historical souvenirs" of Mauritius in 1889, and these were described by Newton and the German ornithologist
Evolution
Apart from being a close relative of the
In 1945, the French palaeontologist
Rails have reached many oceanic
Description
From the subfossil bones, illustrations and descriptions, it is known that the red rail was a flightless bird, somewhat larger than a chicken. Subfossil specimens range in size, which may indicate sexual dimorphism, as is common among rails.[5] It was about 35–40 cm (14–16 in) long, and the male may have weighed 1.3 kg (2.9 lb) and the female 1 kg (2.2 lb).[22] Its plumage was reddish brown all over, and the feathers were fluffy and hairlike; the tail was not visible in the living bird and the short wings likewise also nearly disappeared in the plumage. It had a long, slightly curved, brown bill, and some illustrations suggest it had a nape crest.[23] The bird perhaps resembled a lightly built kiwi, and it has also been likened to a limpkin, both in appearance and behaviour.[15][23]
The cranium of the red rail was the largest among Mascarene rails, and was compressed from top to bottom in side view. The
The
Contemporary descriptions
Mundy visited Mauritius in 1638 and described the red rail as follows:
A Mauritius henne, a Fowle as bigge as our English hennes, of a yellowish Wheaten Colour, of which we only got one. It hath a long, Crooked sharpe pointed bill. Feathered all over, butte on their wings they are soe Few and smalle that they cannot with them raise themselves From the ground. There is a pretty way of taking them with a red cap, but this of ours was taken with a stick. They bee very good Meat, and are also Cloven footed, soe that they can Neyther Fly nor Swymme.[25]
Another English traveller, John Marshall, described the bird as follows in 1668:
Here are also great plenty of Dodos or red hens which are larger a little than our English henns, have long beakes and no, or very little Tayles. Their fethers are like down, and their wings so little that it is not able to support their bodies; but they have long leggs and will runn very fast, and that a man shall not catch them, they will turn so about in the trees. They are good meate when roasted, tasting something like a pig, and their skin like pig skin when roosted, being hard.[15]
Contemporary depictions
The two most realistic contemporary depictions of red rails, the Hoefnagel painting from ca. 1610 and the sketches from the Gelderland ship's journal from 1601 attributed to Laerle, where brought to attention in the 19th century.
The red rail depicted in the Gelderland journal appears to have been stunned or killed, and the sketch is the earliest record of the species. It is the only illustration of the species drawn on Mauritius, and according to Hume, the most accurate depiction. The image was sketched with pencil and finished in ink, but details such as a deeper beak and the shoulder of the wing are only seen in the underlying sketch.[11][2] In addition, there are three rather crude black-and-white sketches, but differences in them were enough for some authors to suggest that each image depicted a distinct species, leading to the creation of several scientific names which are now synonyms.[23] An illustration in van den Broecke's 1646 account (based on his stay on Mauritius in 1617) shows a red rail next to a dodo and a one-horned goat, but is not referenced in the text. An illustration in Herbert's 1634 account (based on his stay in 1629) shows a red rail between a broad-billed parrot and a dodo, and has been referred to as "extremely crude" by Hume. Mundy's 1638 illustration was published in 1919.[2]
As suggested by Greenway, there are also depictions of what appears to be a red rail in three of the Dutch artist
Behaviour and ecology
Contemporary accounts are repetitive and do not shed much light on the life history of the red rail. Based on fossil localities, the bird widely occurred on Mauritius, in montane, lowland, and coastal habitats.
Milne-Edwards suggested that since the tip of the red rail's bill was sharp and strong, it fed by crushing
Hume noted that the front of the red rail's jaws were pitted with numerous foramina, running from the nasal aperture to almost the tip of the premaxilla. These were mostly oval, varying in depth and inclination, and became shallower hindward from the tip. Similar foramina can be seen in probing birds, such as kiwis, ibises, and
A 1631 letter probably by the Dutch lawyer Leonardus Wallesius (long thought lost, but rediscovered in 2017) uses
The soldiers were very small and moved slowly, so that we could catch them easily with our hands. Their armor was their mouth, which was very sharp and pointed; they used it instead of a dagger, were very cowardly and nervous; they did not behave as soldiers at all, and walked in a disorderly manner, one here, the other there, and did not show any faithfulness towards one another.[34]
While it was swift and could escape when chased, it was easily lured by waving a red cloth, which they approached to attack; a similar behaviour was noted in its relative, the Rodrigues rail. The birds could then be picked up, and their cries when held would draw more individuals to the scene, as the birds, which had evolved in the absence of mammalian
The hens in eating taste like parched pigs, if you see a flocke of twelve or twenties, shew them a red cloth, and with their utmost silly fury they will altogether flie upon it, and if you strike downe one, the rest are as good as caught, not budging an iot till they be all destroyed.[15]
Many other endemic species of Mauritius became extinct after the arrival of humans to the island heavily damaged the
Relationship with humans
To the sailors who visited Mauritius from 1598 and onwards, the fauna was mainly interesting from a culinary standpoint. The dodo was sometimes considered rather unpalatable, but the red rail was a popular
... [there is also] a particular sort of bird known as toddaerschen which is the size of an ordinary hen. [To catch them] you take a small stick in the right hand and wrap the left hand in a red rag, showing this to the birds, which are generally in big flocks; these stupid animals precipitate themselves almost without hesitation on the rag. I cannot truly say whether it is through hate or love of this colour. Once they are close enough, you can hit them with the stick, and then have only to pick them up. Once you have taken one and are holding it in your hand, all the others come running up as it [sic] to its aid and can be offered the same fate.[15]
Hoffman's account refers to the red rail by the German version of the Dutch name originally applied to the dodo, "dod-aers", and John Marshall used "red hen" interchangeably with "dodo" in 1668.[37] Milne-Edwards suggested that early travellers may have confused young dodos with red rails.[30] The British ornithologist Alfred Newton (brother of Edward) suggested in 1868 that the name of the dodo was transferred to the red rail after the former had gone extinct.[38] Cheke suggested in 2008 that all post 1662 references to "dodos" therefore refer to the rail instead.[37] A 1681 account of a "dodo", previously thought to have been the last, mentioned that the meat was "hard", similar to the description of red hen meat.[15] The British writer Errol Fuller has also cast the 1662 "dodo" sighting in doubt, as the reaction to distress cries of the birds mentioned matches what was described for the red rail.[23]
In 2020, Cheke and the British researcher Jolyon C. Parish suggested that all mentions of dodos after the mid-17th century instead referred to red rails, and that the dodo had disappeared due to predation by
230 years before
Of these 2 sorts off fowl afforementionede, For oughtt wee yett know, Not any to bee Found out of this Iland, which lyeth aboutt 100 leagues From St. Lawrence. A question may bee demaunded how they should bee here and Not elcewhere, beeing soe Farer From other land and can Neither fly or swymme; whither by Mixture off kindes producing straunge and Monstrous formes, or the Nature of the Climate, ayer and earth in alltring the First shapes in long tyme, or how.[23]
Extinction
Many terrestrial rails are flightless, and island populations are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic (human-caused) changes; as a result, rails have suffered more extinctions than any other family of birds. All six endemic species of Mascarene rails are extinct, all caused by human activities.
Since the red rail was referred to by the names of the dodo in the late 1600s, it is uncertain which is the latest account of the latter.
See also
- Holocene extinction
- List of extinct birds
References
- .
- ^ S2CID 198258434.
- ^ Strickland, H.E.; Melville, A. G. (1848). The Dodo and Its Kindred; or the History, Affinities, and Osteology of the Dodo, Solitaire, and Other Extinct Birds of the Islands Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Bourbon. London: Reeve, Benham and Reeve. p. 21.
- OCLC 84482084.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-87474-804-8.
- ^ Schlegel, H. (1854), "Ook een Woordje over den Dodo (Didus ineptus) en zijne Verwanten", Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen (in Dutch), 2: 232–256
- S2CID 34186343.
- ^ Milne-Edwards, A. (1868). Recherches sur la faune ornithologique éteinte des iles Mascareignes et de Madagascar (in French). Paris: G. Masson. pp. 61–83.
- ^ .
- ^ de Sélys Longchamps, E. (1848), "Résumé concernant les oiseaux brévipennes mentionnés dans l'ouvrage de M. Strickland sur le Dodo", Revue Zoologique Par la Société Cuvierenne (in French), 11: 292–295
- ^ .
- ^ .
- S2CID 87212166.
- ^ Hachisuka, M. (1937). "Untitled [Description of Kuinia mundyi]". Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 57: 54–157.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7136-6544-4.
- ^ .
- S2CID 3981755.
- S2CID 46553514.
- ^ Andrews, C. W. (1896). "On the extinct birds of the Chatham Islands. Part I.: The osteology of Diaphorapteryx hawkinsi". Novitates Zoologicae. 73–84: 72.
- PMC 1692427.
- hdl:10088/2005.
- ^ JSTOR 40168337.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8014-3954-4.
- ^ Herremans, M. Trends in the evolution of insular land birds, exemplified by the Comoros, Seychelles and Mascarenes. Proceedings International Symposium on Vertebrate Biogeography and Systematics in the Tropics. Bonn. pp. 249–260.
- .
- ^ Rothschild, W. (1907). Extinct Birds. London: Hutchinson & Co. p. 131.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4081-5725-1.
- .
- ^ Hume, J. P.; Prys-Jones, R. P. (2005). "New discoveries from old sources, with reference to the original bird and mammal fauna of the Mascarene Islands, Indian Ocean" (PDF). Zoologische Mededelingen. 79 (3): 85–95.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-486-21869-4.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-521-11331-1.
- ^ S2CID 84473440.
- ISBN 978-99949-22-05-5.
- ^ .
- .
- .
- ^ .
- ^ Newton, A. (1868). "Recent ornithological publications". Ibis. 4 (2): 479–482.
- .
- ^ Leguat, F. (1891). The voyage of François Leguat of Bresse, to Rodriguez, Mauritius, Java, and the Cape of Good Hope. London: Hakluyt Society. p. 71.
External links
- Media related to Aphanapteryx at Wikimedia Commons
- Data related to Rallidae at Wikispecies