The buff-banded rail (''Hypotaenidia philippensis'') is a distinctively coloured, highly dispersive, medium-sized rail of the rail 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 ...

. This species comprises several subspecies found throughout much of

Australasia Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologica ...

and the south-west

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

region, including 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 ...

(where it is known as tikling),

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

, Australia, New Zealand (where it is known as the banded rail or moho-pererū in

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

), and numerous smaller islands, covering a range of latitudes from the

tropics The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

to the

Subantarctic The sub-Antarctic zone is a region in the Southern Hemisphere, located immediately north of the Antarctic region. This translates roughly to a latitude of between 46° and 60° south of the Equator. The subantarctic region includes many islands ...

Description

It is a largely terrestrial bird the size of a small domestic chicken, with mainly brown upperparts, finely banded black and white underparts, a white eyebrow, chestnut band running from the bill round the nape, with a buff band on the breast. It utilises a range of moist or

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

habitats with low, dense vegetation for cover. It is usually quite shy but may become very tame and bold in some circumstances, such as in island resorts within the

Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...

region.Marchant, S.; & Higgins, P.J. (Eds). (1993). ''

Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds The ''Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds'', known as ''HANZAB'', is the pre-eminent scientific reference on birds in the region, which includes Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, and the surrounding ocean and subantarctic i ...

. Volume 2: Raptors to Lapwings''. Oxford University Press: Melbourne. The buff-banded rail is an

omnivorous An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nutri ...

scavenger Scavengers are animals that consume dead organisms that have died from causes other than predation or have been killed by other predators. While scavenging generally refers to carnivores feeding on carrion, it is also a herbivorous feeding b ...

which feeds on a range of terrestrial

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s and small vertebrates, seeds, fallen fruit and other vegetable matter, as well as carrion and refuse. Its

nest A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of organic materia ...

is usually situated in dense grassy or reedy vegetation close to water, with a clutch size of 3–4. Although some island populations may be threatened, or even exterminated, by introduced predators, the species as a whole appears to be safe and its conservation status is considered to be of

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

Evolution

Numerous subspecies are recognised for the buff-banded rail because of repeated dispersion of birds to islands in the Pacific, often followed by

founder effect In population genetics, the founder effect is the loss of genetic variation that occurs when a new population is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population. It was first fully outlined by Ernst Mayr in 1942, using ...

s and reduced potential for

gene flow In population genetics, gene flow (also known as gene migration or geneflow and allele flow) is the transfer of genetic material from one population to another. If the rate of gene flow is high enough, then two populations will have equivalent a ...

. The

weka The weka, also known as the Māori hen or woodhen (''Gallirallus australis'') is a flightless bird species of the rail family. It is endemic to New Zealand. It is the only extant member of the genus ''Gallirallus''. Four subspecies are recognize ...

in New Zealand evolved from a lineage with common ancestry to modern buff-tailed banded rail populations, and has changed over time to become

flightless Flightless birds are birds that through evolution lost the ability to fly. There are over 60 extant species, including the well known ratites (ostriches, emu, cassowaries, rheas, and kiwi) and penguins. The smallest flightless bird is the ...

Subspecies

Described

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

include:Zoonomen - Zoological Nomenclature Resource, 2006.07.04
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Gallery and media

File:Buff-banded Rail Fafa Island.jpg, Buff-banded rail, ''G. philippensis'', Fafa island,

Tonga Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...

File:Buff-banded Rail LEI Jan08.jpg, East Australian race ''G. p. mellori'' File:Bul02BirdP033.jpg, Extinct

Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the centra ...

rail '' Porzana monasa'', left, with ''G. philippensis'' File:Gallirallus philippensis -Green Island National Park, Queensland, Australia-8a (2).jpg, Buff-banded rail at

Green Island National Park Green Island National Park is a protected area declared over a small (12 ha) cay, coral cay of Green Island (Queensland), Green Island, Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia. It is known to the local Gungganyji Aboriginal peoples as Green Island, ...

, Green Island, Queensland, Australia File:Buff-banded Rail RWD.jpg, Buff-banded rail, Kiwi Birdlife Park,

Queenstown, New Zealand Queenstown ( mi, Tāhuna) is a resort town in Otago in the south-west of New Zealand's South Island. It has an urban population of The town is built around an inlet called Queenstown Bay on Lake Wakatipu, a long, thin, Z-shaped lake formed by ...

Gallirallus philippensis MHNT.ZOO.2010.11.69.7.jpg, ''Gallirallus philippensis'' - MHNT

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q917017

buff-banded rail The buff-banded rail (''Hypotaenidia philippensis'') is a distinctively coloured, highly dispersive, medium-sized rail of the rail family, Rallidae. This species comprises several subspecies found throughout much of Australasia and the south-we ...

Birds of Malesia Birds of Oceania Least concern biota of Oceania