The red-necked crake (''Rallina tricolor'') is a

waterbird A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystems, although others make no distinction from seabi ...

in the rail and

crake 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 ...

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 ...

Description

The red-necked crake is a large crake (length 25 cm, wingspan 40 cm, weight 200 g). Its head, neck and breast are red-brown, with a paler version of that color on the throat. The upperparts are grey-brown, while the underparts are grey-brown with pale barring. The underwing is barred black and white, the bill green, and the legs grey-brown.

Distribution and habitat

Red-necked crakes live in the Moluccas,

Lesser Sundas The Lesser Sunda Islands or nowadays known as Nusa Tenggara Islands ( id, Kepulauan Nusa Tenggara, formerly ) are an archipelago in Maritime Southeast Asia, north of Australia. Together with the Greater Sunda Islands to the west they make up ...

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 ...

lowlands and adjacent islands, and north-eastern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. They are found in tropical

rainforest Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainfores ...

s and dense vegetation close to permanent

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 ...

Behaviour

Diet

The bird's diet consists of

amphibian Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...

s, aquatic

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 ...

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

s and

mollusc Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

Breeding

The bird rests on or close to ground in dense vegetation. It lays clutches of 3-5 dull-white eggs, the incubation periods of which are around 20 days. The chicks emerge covered in black down, precocial and

nidifugous In biology, nidifugous ( , ) organisms are those that leave the nest shortly after hatching or birth. The term is derived from Latin ''nidus'' for "nest" and ''fugere'', meaning "to flee". The terminology is most often used to describe birds and w ...

Voice

The crake makes repetitive clicking calls and soft grunts.

Conservation

With a large range and no evidence of significant decline, this species is assessed as being 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 ...

. The species is little studied and seldom seen due to its secretive nature, but appears to be locally common in New Guinea. In Australia it has suffered declines due to habitat loss.

References

* BirdLife International. (2007). Species factsheet: ''Rallina tricolor''. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 14/6/2007 * Marchant, S.; Higgins, P.J.; & Davies, J.N. (eds). (1994). ''Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds. Volume 2: Raptors to Lapwings''. Oxford University Press: Melbourne. red-necked crake Birds of Queensland Birds of New Guinea Birds of the Maluku Islands Birds of New Ireland Province red-necked crake red-necked crake {{Gruiformes-stub