''Pardirallus'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

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 lightweig ...

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, althou ...

. It contains three species native to marshland areas of Southern,

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

and the Caribbean, although fossil evidence indicates they once ranged north to what is now

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyomi ...

. They are 25–38 cm long and have a long greenish bill and reddish legs. The spotted rail is blackish-brown with white markings while the other two are brown above and dark grey below. The genus ''Pardirallus'' was erected by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1856 with the spotted rail (''Pardirallus maculatus'') as the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...

. The generic name combines the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''pardos'' meaning "leopard" with the genus ''Rallus''.

Species

The genus contains three species : An

fossil 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 ...

species, '' Pardirallus lacustris'', is known from the

Late Pliocene Late may refer to: * LATE, an acronym which could stand for: ** Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a proposed form of dementia ** Local-authority trading enterprise, a New Zealand business law ** Local average treatment effect, ...

of the Hagerman Fossil Beds of

. It was formerly assigned to the genus ''

Porzana ''Porzana'' is a genus of birds in the crake and rail family, Rallidae. Its scientific name is derived from Venetian terms for small rails. The spotted crake (''P. porzana'') is the type species. Taxonomy The genus ''Porzana'' was erected by t ...

'' upon its description in 1958 by

Pierce Brodkorb William Pierce Brodkorb (September 29, 1908, Chicago – July 18, 1992, Gainesville, Florida) was an American ornithologist and paleontologist. Interested in birds since childhood, he was taught to prepare birds at the age of 16. Later, he rec ...

and later to the genus ''

Rallus ''Rallus'' is a genus of wetland birds of the rail family. Sometimes, the genera ''Lewinia'' and ''Gallirallus'' are included in it. Six of the species are found in the Americas, and the three species found in Eurasia, Africa and Madagascar ar ...

'' in 1968 by Alan Feduccia, but an analysis by Storrs L. Olson in 1977 transferred it to ''Pardirallus.''

References

External links

* * Bird genera Higher-level bird taxa restricted to the Neotropics Taxa named by Charles Lucien Bonaparte Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Extant Piacenzian first appearances {{Gruiformes-stub