Dieffenbach's rail (

Moriori The Moriori are the native Polynesian people of the Chatham Islands (''Rēkohu'' in Moriori; ' in Māori), New Zealand. Moriori originated from Māori settlers from the New Zealand mainland around 1500 CE. This was near the time of the ...

: ''meriki'' or ''mehoriki'', ''Hypotaenidia dieffenbachii'') is an

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

from 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 ...

to the

Chatham Islands The Chatham Islands ( ) (Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island. They are administered as part of New Zealand. The archipelago consists of about te ...

. The only recorded living specimen of Dieffenbach's rail was captured in 1840 by

Ernst Dieffenbach Johann Karl Ernst Dieffenbach (27 January 1811 – 1 October 1855), also known as Ernest Dieffenbach, was a German physician, geologist and naturalist, the first trained scientist to live and work in New Zealand, where he travelled widely under t ...

, who is commemorated in the scientific and common name of the species. It became

due to hunting and introduced predators, perhaps soon after 1840. The Dieffenbach's rail was

sympatric In biology, two related species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus frequently encounter one another. An initially interbreeding population that splits into two or more distinct species sh ...

with the flightless

Chatham rail The Chatham rail (''Cabalus modestus'') is an extinct flightless species of bird in the family Rallidae. It was endemic to Chatham, Mangere and Pitt Islands, in the Chatham archipelago of New Zealand. The Chatham rail and the Dieffenbach's ...

. Their sympatry suggests parallel evolution after separate colonisation of the

by a common volant ancestor, presumably the

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 ...

(''Hypotaenidia philippensis''). A 2014 genetic analysis found that the taxa were not particularly closely related, with Dieffenbach's rail being sister to the group of ''Hypotaenidia'' including the Buff-banded rail, while the Chatham rail was found to be in a more basal position. File:MA I360062 TePapa Gallirallus-dieffenbachii lateral.jpg, Lateral view File:MA I360063 TePapa Gallirallus-dieffenbachii dorsal.jpg, Dorsal view File:MA I360064 TePapa Gallirallus-dieffenbachii ventral.jpg, Ventral view File:MA I360065 TePapa Gallirallus-dieffenbachii oblique.jpg, Oblique view

References

Hypotaenidia Bird extinctions since 1500 Extinct birds of the Chatham Islands Birds described in 1843 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Birds with names in Moriori {{Gruiformes-stub