St. Helena Rail
| St. Helena Rail | ||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||
| Aphanocrex | ||||||||||
| Wetmore, 1963 | ||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||
| Aphanocrex podarces | ||||||||||
| Wetmore , 1963 |
The St. Helena rail ( Aphanocrex podarces ) was a large flightless rail from the island of St. Helena . It died out in the early 16th century.
features
The St. Helena railing was quite large, almost the size of New Zealand's Wekaralle ( Gallirallus australis ). In contrast to the Wekaralle, however, it was slimmer. Because St. Helena was free of predators until the 16th century, it lost its ability to fly. Their wings were evidently better developed than those of the rails of Ascension ( Mundia elpenor ) and Inaccessible ( Atlantisia rogersi ). In addition, she had strong toes with long claws, with which she was well adapted to climbing and fluttering down the steep valley slopes.
Way of life
The St. Helena rail may have fed on the eggs and chicks of land and coastal birds, as well as snails.
die out
Like other ground-nesting birds, St. Helenas, such as B. the St. Helena moorhen and the St. Helena hoopoe , it was believed to have been victims of introduced mammals such as cats and rats .
Systematics
When the American ornithologist Alexander Wetmore described the species on the basis of subfossil bones found in Prosperous Bay on St. Helena in 1963, he classified it in the new genus Aphanocrex . The American paleontologist Storrs Olson, however, considered them related to the Atlantis rail ( Atlantisia rogersi ) by Inaccessible and the Ascension rail and in 1973 synonymized the genus Aphanocrex with the genus Atlantisia . Recently, however, many scientists assume that the rails of St. Helena, Ascension and Inaccessible developed independently of each other and that there is no closer relationship between the St. Helena rail and the Atlantis rail. That is why they have been placed back in the genus Aphanocrex .
literature
- Storrs L. Olson: Paleornithology of St. Helena Island, south Atlantic Ocean. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 23 (1975)
Web links
- Atlantisia podarces inthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2014.3. Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved December 19, 2014.