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Wikipedia / Gallirallus

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.

Taxonomy

The genus Gallirallus was introduced in 1841 by the French ornithologist Frédéric de Lafresnaye to accommodate a single species, Gallirallus brachypterus Lafresnaye. This is the type species. The name is a junior synonym of Rallus australis Sparman, 1786, the weka. The genus name is a portmanteau of the genera Gallus that had been introduced by Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760 for the fowl, and the genus Rallus that had been introduced by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 for the rails.

The genus Gallirallus now includes species that were formerly placed in the genera Aptenorallus, Habroptila, Eulabeornis, Cabalus, and Hypotaenidia. Based on genetic analyses that showed relatively shallow branch lengths and sometimes conflicting relationships, the five genera have been subsumed into a broad Gallirallus.

Description

Many of the rails, including the well-known weka of New Zealand, are flightless or nearly so. Many of the resultant flightless island endemics became extinct after the arrival of humans, which hunted these birds for food, introduced novel predatorss like rats, dogs or pigs, and upset the local ecosystems. A common Polynesian name of these rails, mainly relatives of G. philippensis, is veka/weka (in English, this name is generally limited to Gallirallus australis).

On the other hand, Gallirallus species are (with the exception of the weka) notoriously retiring and shy birds with often drab coloration.

Species

The genus contains 18 species. Of these 6 have become extinct in historical times.

Species extinct before A.D. 1500

Given recent taxonomic proposals that the weka is the only extant Gallirallus species, it is possible these may also belong to different genera, but are presently retained in Gallirallus due to uncertainty.

References