The New Caledonian gallinule (''Porphyrio kukwiedei'') was 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 was

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 ...

New Caledonia ) , anthem = "" , image_map = New Caledonia on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of New Caledonia , map_caption = Location of New Caledonia , mapsize = 290px , subdivision_type = Sovereign st ...

and probably became

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

due to

hunting Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

and the presence of invasive species following human settlement of the island. However a passage from an 1860 article refers to birds the size of turkeys being present in marshy areas of New Caledone, suggesting that it may have survived into historic times. The native name ''n'dino'' is thought to refer to this bird. It was described from

subfossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...

bones found at the

Pindai Caves The Pindai Caves of New Caledonia are an archaeological and palaeontological site important for the study of prehistoric human settlement as well as of the Holocene fauna of the island. The Pindai area has been occupied by humans for varying perio ...

paleontological site A paleontological or fossiliferous site is a locality in which a significant quantity of fossils is naturally preserved in the rocks. The extent of the site is determined, in some cases, by the spatial distribution of the concentration of fossils ...

on the west coast of Grande Terre. The specific

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

derives from ''Kukwiede'', the name of a local deity associated with a legend leading to the discovery of a bone of the gallinule on the Isle of Pines.

References

Porphyrio Extinct birds of New Caledonia Holocene extinctions Birds described in 1989 Late Quaternary prehistoric birds Taxa named by Jean-Christophe Balouet Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Gruiformes-stub