Spotted rail

The spotted rail (Pardirallus maculatus) is a species of bird in the subfamily Rallinae of the rail, crake, and coot family Rallidae. It is found in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America.[2][3]

Spotted rail
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Class: Aves
Order: Gruiformes
Family: Rallidae
Genus: Pardirallus
Species:
P. maculatus
Binomial name
Pardirallus maculatus
(Boddaert, 1783)

Taxonomy

The spotted rail was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1781 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in French Guiana.[4] The bird was also illustrated in a hand-colored plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text.[5] Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Rallus maculatus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées.[6] The spotted rail is now placed in the genus Pardirallus that was erected by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1856.[7][8] The generic name combines the Ancient Greek pardos meaning "leopard" with the genus Rallus. The specific epithet maculatus is Latin for "spotted" or "blotched"[9]

Two subspecies are recognized:[2]

  • P. m. insolitus (Bangs & Peck, 1908)
  • P. m. maculatus (Boddaert, 1783)

Description

The spotted rail is 25 to 28 cm (9.8 to 11.0 in) long and weighs 130 to 220 g (4.6 to 7.8 oz); females are slightly smaller than males. The sexes are alike. They have a long greenish bill with a red spot at the base of the mandible and pinkish legs. Both subspecies have a blackish head with a red eye, black and brown upperparts, and black underparts with white streaks and spots. The nominate subspecies P. m. maculatus has white streaks on its upperparts and P. m. insolitus white spots.[10]

Distribution and habitat

the subspecies P. m. insolitus of the spotted rail is found from Mexico to Costa Rica. The nominate subspecies is found in Cuba, Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic and Haiti), Jamaica, and every mainland South American country except Guyana (though in Chile only as a vagrant to the Juan Fernández Islands). The species also occurs in Panama but the subspecies there is not known. Its distribution in Mexico, Central America, and much of South America is local rather than continuous. In addition to Chile, it has occurred as a vagrant in Trinidad and the U.S. states of Pennsylvania and Texas.[10][11][12]

The spotted rail inhabits wet landscapes including marshes, swamps, rice fields, and wet grasslands. It requires dense cover.[10]

Behavior

Movement

The spotted rail has no pattern of movement, though it is known to move locally in response to changing water levels or drought, and has documented vagrancy.[10]

Feeding

The spotted rail forages in shallow water or along the water's edge. It usually stays in cover but at dawn and dusk may feed in more open areas. Its diet includes earthworms, adult and larval insects and other invertebrates, and also small fish and pondweed (Potamogeton epihydrus).[10]

Breeding

The spotted rail's breeding season varies widely across its range. It appears to be territorial during the breeding season. It makes a cup or bowl nest of grass or dead rushes in vegetation near the ground and often above shallow water. The clutch size is two to seven eggs. The incubation period and time to fledging are not known.[10]

Vocalization

The spotted rail makes a "[l]oud, repeated, rasping, groaning screech, usually preceded by grunt or pop, 'g'reech' or 'pum-kreep'" that is thought to be a territorial or aggressive call. It also makes "an accelerating series of deep, gruff, pumping notes" and a "sharp, repeated 'gek'." It sometimes calls at night.[10]

Status

The IUCN has assessed the spotted rail as being of Least Concern. It has a very large range, but an estimated population of only 670 to 6700 mature individuals with an unknown trend. No immediate threats have been identified.[1] It is "[u]ndoubtedly overlooked, especially when breeding, and probably more widespread within [its] range than existing records suggest."[10]

References
  1. BirdLife International (2022). "Spotted Rail Pardirallus maculatus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2022: e.T22692763A163614849. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
  2. Gill, F.; Donsker, D.; Rasmussen, P., eds. (August 2022). "Finfoots, flufftails, rails, trumpeters, cranes, Limpkin". IOC World Bird List. v 12.2. Retrieved August 9, 2022.
  3. HBW and BirdLife International (2021) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world. Version 6. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v6_Dec21.zip retrieved August 7, 2022
  4. Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de (1781). "Le râle tacheté de Cayenne". Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux (in French). Vol. 15. Paris: De L'Imprimerie Royale. p. 255.
  5. Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de; Martinet, François-Nicolas; Daubenton, Edme-Louis; Daubenton, Louis-Jean-Marie (1765–1783). "Râle tacheté, de Cayenne". Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle. Vol. 8. Paris: De L'Imprimerie Royale. Plate 775.
  6. Boddaert, Pieter (1783). Table des planches enluminéez d'histoire naturelle de M. D'Aubenton : avec les denominations de M.M. de Buffon, Brisson, Edwards, Linnaeus et Latham, precedé d'une notice des principaux ouvrages zoologiques enluminés (in French). Utrecht. p. 48, Number 775.
  7. Bonaparte, Charles Lucien (1856). "Excusion dans les divers Musées d'Allemagne, de Hollande et de Belgique (suite)". Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences. 43: 593–601 [599].
  8. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2019). "Flufftails, finfoots, rails, trumpeters, cranes, limpkin". World Bird List Version 9.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  9. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. pp. 236, 292. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  10. Taylor, B. (2020). Spotted Rail (Pardirallus maculatus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.sporai.01 retrieved October 13, 2022
  11. Chesser, R. T., S. M. Billerman, K. J. Burns, C. Cicero, J. L. Dunn, B. E. Hernández-Baños, R. A. Jiménez, A. W. Kratter, N. A. Mason, P. C. Rasmussen, J. V. Remsen, Jr., D. F. Stotz, and K. Winker. 2022. Check-list of North American Birds (online). American Ornithological Society. https://checklist.aou.org/taxa
  12. Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 24 July 2022. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved July 24, 2022
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