The brown-banded rail (''Lewinia mirifica'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

in the family

Rallidae The rails, or Rallidae, are a large cosmopolitan family of small- to medium-sized, ground-living birds. The family exhibits considerable diversity and includes the crakes, coots, and gallinules. Many species are associated with wetlands, althoug ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

, known from

Luzon Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as ...

and

Samar Samar ( ) is the third-largest and seventh-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total population of 1,909,537 as of the 2020 census. It is located in the eastern Visayas, which are in the central Philippines. The island is divided in ...

. Details about its life and breeding are not known. Its habitat is listed to be

cloudforest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud c ...

, near pine forest and undisturbed river swamp and is found at 500–2,250 meters. It is largely known from migration records of 200 sightings from 1965 to 1970 at

Dalton Pass Dalton Pass, also called Balete Pass, is a zigzag road and mountain pass that joins the provinces of Nueva Ecija and Nueva Vizcaya, in central Luzon island of the Philippines. It is part of Cagayan Valley Road segment of Pan-Philippine Highway (M ...

so it is thought to be migratory. The most recent sighting was in 2001 and the call is described as "frog-like accelerating series of clicking notes". The threats are not exactly known but it has been and is continuing to be hunted at Dalton Pass.

References

brown-banded rail The brown-banded rail (''Lewinia mirifica'') is a species of bird in the family Rallidae. It is endemic to the Philippines, known from Luzon and Samar. Details about its life and breeding are not known. Its habitat is listed to be cloudforest, ne ...

Endemic birds of the Philippines Birds of Luzon Fauna of Samar

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Gruiformes-stub