Calayan rail
Calayan rail | ||||||||||||
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Scientific name | ||||||||||||
Gallirallus calayanensis | ||||||||||||
Allen , Oliveros , Española , Broad & Gonzalez , 2004 |
The Calayan's rail ( Gallirallus calayanensis ) is a flightless or almost flightless bird that was only discovered in May 2004. Their occurrence is limited to Calayan , an island in the Babuyan Islands in the northern Philippines .
description
The closest related species is obviously the Okinawaralle from the island of Okinawa , which belongs to Japan . The Calayan Rail is very similar to the Okinawaralle in size and build.
The Calayan rail is about the size of a small crow and the zebra rail ( G. torquatus ) and therefore a medium-sized rail. It is drawn dark olive and gray, has a red beak, red legs and very weak flight muscles.
Habitat and way of life
The species lives in areas where young trees grow back in the rainforest and near rivers. It is limited to forests that grow on limestone. This makes it highly specialized in its habitat requirements. While other rail species, whose preferred habitat is young forest, can also be observed in rice fields in clearings in the forest, in undisturbed high forest and on paths, the Calayan rail does not occur there. It feeds by searching the ground for food, occasionally turning over leaves.
Detection and threat status
The Calayan's rail ( Gallirallus calayanensis ) was only discovered on May 11, 2004. The fact that it remained unknown for so long is due to the fact that the last visit by an ornithologist was 100 years ago before the Ralle was discovered. During her visit to the island, the biologist Carmela Española first heard unknown calls, which then led her to an unknown dark-colored rail. Further research together with residents of the island confirmed the assumption that science was not yet known.
The fact that the rail is endemic for Calayan, i.e. only occurs there, and at the same time is highly specialized in its habitat requirements, means that there are only around 10 km² of habitats suitable for the rail. Although there are only about 100–200 breeding pairs of the Calayan's ralle in total, it is abundant in its preferred habitats, and nothing to indicate that the population could decline. Since their preferred habitat is not suitable for agricultural cultivation, there is hope that the population will remain stable. However, a road is currently being built around the island, which could mean that the railroad is threatened by the settlement of more people with their pets and cultural followers.
Web links
Pictures of the Calayan rail: 1 , 2 , 3
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Gallirallus calayanensis in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2006. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2005. Retrieved on 10 September, 2007.
- ↑ a b c d e Desmond Allen, Carl Oliveros, Carmela Espanola, Genevieve Broad, Juan Carlos T Gonzalez: A new species of Gallirallus from Calayan island, Philippines. In: Zootaxa. 2006 Sept 18; 1316: 1-31.
- ↑ a b c d e f Remarkable rail discovered "just in time". 17-08-2004 © 2008 BirdLife International.
- ↑ Robert Pfeifer: Gallirallus calayanensis, a new wood rail from the Philippines. March 9, 2005. In: Archive reports (in chronological order) http://www.tropenornithologie.de/ ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Clive Roots: Flightless Birds. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006, ISBN 0-313-33545-1 .
- ^ D. Allen, C. Espanola, G. Broad, C. Oliveros, JCT Gonzalez: New bird records for the Babuyan islands, Philippines, including two first records for the Philippines. In: Forktail. 22, August 2006, pp. 57-70.
- ^ Yong Ding Li: Bird species new to science from Southeast Asia (1997-2007). ( Memento of November 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 815 kB)