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Moorhens—sometimes called marsh hens—are medium-sized water birds that are members of the
rail Rail or rails may refer to: Rail transport *Rail transport and related matters *Rail (rail transport) or railway lines, the running surface of a railway Arts and media Film * ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini * ''Rail'' ( ...
family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
(Rallidae). Most species are placed in the
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 ...
''Gallinula'',
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
for "little hen". They are close relatives of
coot Coots are medium-sized water birds that are members of the rail family, Rallidae. They constitute the genus ''Fulica'', the name being the Latin term for "coot". Coots have predominantly black plumage, and—unlike many rails—they are usually ...
s. They are often referred to as (black) gallinules. Recently, one of the species of ''Gallinula'' was found to have enough differences to form a new genus '' Paragallinula'' with the only species being the
lesser moorhen The lesser moorhen (''Paragallinula angulata'') is a species of bird in the family Rallidae. It is sometimes placed into the genus '' Gallinula''. It is the only member of the genus ''Paragallinula''. It is widely spread across Sub-Saharan Afri ...
(''Paragallinula angulata''). Two
species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...
from the
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
n region, sometimes separated in , are called "native hens" (also native-hen or nativehen). The native hens differ visually by shorter, thicker and stubbier toes and bills, and longer tails that lack the white signal pattern of typical moorhens.Boles (2005)


Description

These rails are mostly brown and black with some white markings in
plumage Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...
colour. Unlike many of the rails, they are usually easy to see because they feed in open water margins rather than hidden in reedbeds. They have short rounded wings and are weak fliers, although usually capable of covering long distances. The
common moorhen The common moorhen (''Gallinula chloropus''), also known as the waterhen or swamp chicken, is a bird species in the rail (bird), rail family (Rallidae). It is distributed across many parts of the Old World. The common moorhen lives around well-v ...
in particular migrates up to 2,000 km from some of its breeding areas in the colder parts of
Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part ...
. Those that migrate do so at night. The
Gough moorhen The Gough moorhen (''Gallinula comeri'') is a medium-sized, almost flightless bird that is similar to the common moorhen (''Gallinula chloropus''), but is smaller, stockier, and has shorter wings. The bird has a distinctive yellow-tipped red bil ...
on the other hand is considered almost flightless; it can only flutter some metres. As is common in
rail Rail or rails may refer to: Rail transport *Rail transport and related matters *Rail (rail transport) or railway lines, the running surface of a railway Arts and media Film * ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini * ''Rail'' ( ...
s, there has been a marked tendency to evolve flightlessness in island populations. Moorhens can walk very well on their strong legs, and have long toes that are well adapted to soft uneven surfaces. These birds are
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 nut ...
, consuming plant material, small rodents, amphibians and eggs. They are aggressively territorial during the breeding season, but are otherwise often found in sizeable flocks on the shallow vegetated lakes they prefer.


Systematics and evolution

The
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 ...
''Gallinula'' was introduced by the French zoologist
Mathurin Jacques Brisson Mathurin Jacques Brisson (; 30 April 1723 – 23 June 1806) was a French zoologist and natural philosopher. Brisson was born at Fontenay-le-Comte. The earlier part of his life was spent in the pursuit of natural history; his published wo ...
in 1760 with the
common moorhen The common moorhen (''Gallinula chloropus''), also known as the waterhen or swamp chicken, is a bird species in the rail (bird), rail family (Rallidae). It is distributed across many parts of the Old World. The common moorhen lives around well-v ...
(''Gallinula chloropus'') 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 specim ...
. The genus ''Gallinula'' contains five extant, one recently
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 ...
, and one
possibly extinct The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biologi ...
species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...
: * Samoan moorhen, ''Gallinula pacifica'' – sometimes placed in ''Pareudiastes'', possibly extinct (1907?) * Makira moorhen, ''Gallinula silvestris'' – sometimes placed in ''Pareudiastes'' or ''Edithornis'', extremely rare with no direct observations in recent decades, but still considered likely extant due to reports of the species persisting in very small numbers. *†
Tristan moorhen The Tristan moorhen (''Gallinula nesiotis'') is an extinct species of flightless rail endemic to the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha. It was very similar to the Gough moorhen of Gough Island, located 395 miles to the southeast. The on ...
, ''Gallinula nesiotis'' – formerly sometimes placed in '; extinct (late 19th century) *
Gough moorhen The Gough moorhen (''Gallinula comeri'') is a medium-sized, almost flightless bird that is similar to the common moorhen (''Gallinula chloropus''), but is smaller, stockier, and has shorter wings. The bird has a distinctive yellow-tipped red bil ...
, ''Gallinula comeri'' – formerly sometimes placed in ''Porphyriornis'' *
Common moorhen The common moorhen (''Gallinula chloropus''), also known as the waterhen or swamp chicken, is a bird species in the rail (bird), rail family (Rallidae). It is distributed across many parts of the Old World. The common moorhen lives around well-v ...
, ''Gallinula chloropus'' * Common gallinule, ''Gallinula (chloropus) galeata'', recently split by the AOU, other committees still evaluating *
Dusky moorhen The dusky moorhen (''Gallinula tenebrosa'') is a bird species in the rail family and is one of the eight extant species in the moorhen genus. It occurs in India, Australia, New Guinea, Borneo and Indonesia. It is often confused with the purple s ...
, ''Gallinula tenebrosa'' Former members of the genus: *
Lesser moorhen The lesser moorhen (''Paragallinula angulata'') is a species of bird in the family Rallidae. It is sometimes placed into the genus '' Gallinula''. It is the only member of the genus ''Paragallinula''. It is widely spread across Sub-Saharan Afri ...
, ''Paragallinula angulata'' *
Spot-flanked gallinule The spot-flanked gallinule (''Porphyriops melanops'') is a species of bird in the family Rallidae. It is monotypic in the genus ''Porphyriops''. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. Its natura ...
, ''Porphyriops melanops'' * Black-tailed native hen, ''Tribonyx ventralis'' *
Tasmanian native hen The Tasmanian nativehen (''Tribonyx mortierii'') (palawa kani: piyura) (alternate spellings: Tasmanian native-hen or Tasmanian native hen) is a flightless rail and one of twelve species of birds endemic to the Australian island of Tasmania. Alt ...
, ''Tribonyx mortierii'' Other moorhens have been described from older remains. Apart from the 1–3 extinctions in more recent times, another 1–4 species have gone
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 ...
as a consequence of early human settlement: Hodgen's waterhen (''Gallinula hodgenorum'') of
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...
—which belongs in
subgenus In biology, a subgenus (plural: subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between ...
''Tribonyx''—and a species close to the Samoan moorhen from Buka,
Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...
, which is almost certainly distinct from the Makira moorhen, as the latter cannot fly. The undescribed Viti Levu gallinule of
Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consis ...
would either be separated in ''Pareudiastes'' if that genus is considered valid, or may be a completely new genus. Similarly, the undescribed "swamphen" of
Mangaia Mangaia (traditionally known as A'ua'u Enua, which means ''terraced'') is the most southerly of the Cook Islands and the second largest, after Rarotonga. It is a roughly circular island, with an area of , from Rarotonga. Originally heavily popula ...
, currently tentatively assigned to ''
Porphyrio ''Porphyrio'' is the swamphen or swamp hen bird genus in the rail family. It includes some smaller species which are usually called "purple gallinules", and which are sometimes separated as genus ''Porphyrula'' or united with the gallinules pro ...
'', may belong to ''Gallinula''/''Pareudiastes''.


Evolution

Still older
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 ...
s document the genus since the
Late Oligocene The Chattian is, in the geologic timescale, the younger of two ages or upper of two stages of the Oligocene Epoch/ Series. It spans the time between . The Chattian is preceded by the Rupelian and is followed by the Aquitanian (the lowest stage ...
onwards. The genus seems to have originated in the Southern Hemisphere, in the general region of
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
. By the
Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Australlus ''Australlus'' is an extinct genus of birds in the Rallidae, rail family. It was Species description, described from a series of Chattian, Late Oligocene to Middle Miocene fossil material found at Australian Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh), Ri ...
''. Even among non-
Passeriformes A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...
, this genus has a long documented existence. Consequently, some unassigned fragmentary rail fossils might also be from moorhens or native hens. For example, specimen QM F30696, a left
distal Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position pro ...
tibiotarsus piece from the Oligo-Miocene boundary at Riversleigh, is similar to but than and differs in details from ''"G." disneyi''. It cannot be said if this bird—if a distinct species—was flightless. From size alone, it might have been an ancestor of ''G. mortierii'' (see also below). In addition to
paleosubspecies A chronospecies is a species derived from a sequential development pattern that involves continual and uniform changes from an extinct ancestral form on an evolutionary scale. The sequence of alterations eventually produces a population that is p ...
of ''Gallinula chloropus'', the doubtfully distinct
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, ...
to Pleistocene ''Gallinula mortierii reperta'' was described, referring to the population of the Tasmanian native hen that once inhabited mainland Australia and became extinct at the end of the last ice age. It may be that apart from
climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
it was driven to extinction by the introduction of the
dingo The dingo (''Canis familiaris'', ''Canis familiaris dingo'', ''Canis dingo'', or ''Canis lupus dingo'') is an ancient (Basal (phylogenetics), basal) lineage of dog found in Australia (continent), Australia. Its taxonomic classification is de ...
, which as opposed to the
marsupial Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a po ...
predators hunted during the day, but this would require a survival of mainland ''Gallinula mortierii'' to as late as about 1500 BC.Baird (1991), Boles (2005) ''"G." disneyi'' was yet another flightless native hen, indicative of that group's rather basal position among moorhens. Its time and place of occurrence suggest it as an ancestor of ''G. mortierii (reperta)'', from which it differed mostly in its much smaller size. However, some limb bone proportions are also strikingly different, and in any case such a scenario would require a flightless bird to change but little during some 20 million years in an environment rich in
predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...
s. As the fossils of ''G. disneyi'' as well as the rich recent and
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 ...
material of ''G. mortierii'' shows no evidence of such a change at all, ''"G." disneyi'' more probably represents a case of
parallel evolution Parallel evolution is the similar development of a trait in distinct species that are not closely related, but share a similar original trait in response to similar evolutionary pressure.Zhang, J. and Kumar, S. 1997Detection of convergent and paral ...
at an earlier date, as signified by its placement in ''Australlus''.


References


Further reading

* Baird, Robert F. (1984): The Pleistocene distribution of the Tasmanian native-hen ''Gallinula mortierii mortierii''. ''
Emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus ''Dromaius''. The emu' ...
'' 84(2): 119–123
PDF fulltext
* Baird, Robert F. (1991): The Dingo as a Possible Factor in the Disappearance of ''Gallinula mortierii'' from the Australian Mainland. ''
Emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus ''Dromaius''. The emu' ...
'' 91(2): 121–122
PDF fulltext
* Boles, Walter E. (2005): A New Flightless Gallinule (Aves: Rallidae: ''Gallinula'') from the Oligo-Miocene of Riversleigh, Northwestern Queensland, Australia. (2005) ''Records of the Australian Museum'' 57(2): 179–190
PDF fulltext
* Olson, Storrs L. (1975): The fossil rails of C.W. DeVis, being mainly an extinct form of ''Tribonyx mortierii'' from Queensland. ''
Emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus ''Dromaius''. The emu' ...
'' 75(2): 49–54.