Rodrigues rail
| Rodrigues rail | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Subfossil bones, 1879 | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Gruiformes |
| Family: | Rallidae |
| Genus: | Erythromachus |
| Species: | E. leguati |
| Binomial name | |
|
Erythromachus leguati Milne-Edwards, 1874 |
|
 |
|
| Former range | |
| Synonyms | |
|
List
|
|
The Rodrigues rail or Leguat's gelinote (Erythromachus leguati) is an extinct, flightless rail that was endemic to the Mascarene island of Rodrigues, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. It was described as having grey plumage, a red beak, red legs, and a naked red patch around the eye. The beak varied between specimens from straight to curved, but the reason for this is unknown.
It is sometimes assigned to the genus Aphanapteryx, along with its close relative the red rail (A. bonasia) of Mauritius, but they are commonly kept separate. Its relationship with other rails is unclear. It was described as being attracted to red objects, which humans exploited while hunting it.
The Rodrigues rail is believed to have become extinct in the mid-18th century because of destruction of its habitat and predation by humans and introduced animals. Apart from information gathered from subfossil bones, the bird is poorly understood and is only known from two contemporaneous descriptions, and there are no extant illustrations of it. The bird was first described by François Leguat, a French Huguenot refugee marooned on Rodrigues in 1691, and was named leguati in his honour. The second description is by Julien Tafforet, also marooned on the island in 1726. Subfossil remains were first described and connected with the extant descriptions in 1874.
In 1848, Hugh Strickland wrote that a bird similar to the red rail (Aphanapteryx bonasia) of Mauritius was mentioned in François Leguat's memoirs, but was unable to classify it further because of a lack of remains. He wrote that it may have been a grouse or gallinaceous bird. In 1874, Alphonse Milne-Edwards connected Leguat's and Tafforet's descriptions with some bones found in a cave on Rodrigues, and recognised their similarity to those of the red rail. Milne-Edwards coined the generic name Erthyromachus from the Greek words for "red" and "battle", in reference to its behaviour towards red objects, and the specific name is in honour of Leguat. The junior synonym Miserythrus, from "red" and "hatred", was coined by Alfred Newton in 1893, also referring to this behaviour.James Greenway wrote that Leguat's description referred to wind-blown purple swamphen. This has not been accepted by other authors. More remains were found in 1974.
...
Wikipedia