Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
Issue: Vol. 4407 No. 3: 11 Apr. 2018
Type: Article
Published: 2018-04-11
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4407.3.5
Page range: 376–382
Abstract views: 79
PDF downloaded: 2

Another new species of flightless Rail (Aves: Rallidae: Rallus) from Abaco,
The Bahamas

Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Aves Rails Rallus extinct species fossils Bahamas Pleistocene

Abstract

We describe a late Pleistocene species of extinct rail, Rallus gracilipes n. sp., from Sawmill Sink blue hole on Abaco Island, Little Bahama Bank, The Bahamas. The only other extinct rail known from any Bahamian island is the smaller Rallus cyanocavi, also from late Pleistocene contexts at Sawmill Sink. No fossils of R. gracilipes or R. cyanocavi have been found in Holocene sites on Abaco; the loss of both of these species is likely to be due to changes in climate, habitat, and island area during the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition.

 

References

  1. Baumel, J.J. & Witmer, L.M. (1993) Osteologia. In: Baumel, J.J., King, A.S., Breazile, J.E., Evans, H.E. & Vanden Berge, J.C. (Eds.), Handbook of Avian Anatomy: Nomina Anatomica Avium. 2nd Edition. Nuttall Ornithological Club, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 45–132.

    Kirchman, J.J. & Steadman, D.W. (2005) Rails (Aves: Rallidae: Gallirallus) from prehistoric sites in the Kingdom of Tonga, including a description of a new species. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 118, 465–477.
    https://doi.org/10.2988/0006-324X(2005)118[465:RARGFP]2.0.CO;2

    Kirchman, J.J. & Steadman, D.W. (2006) New species of rails (Aves: Rallidae) from an archaeological site on Huahine, Society Islands. Pacific Science, 60, 281–297.
    https://doi.org/10.1353/psc.2006.0007

    Livezey, B.C. (2003) Evolution of flightlessness in rails (Gruiformes: Rallidae): phylogenetic, ecomorphological, and ontogenetic perspectives. Ornithological Monographs, 53, i–x + 1–654.
    https://doi.org/10.2307/40168337

    Olson, S.L. & Hilgartner, W.B. (1982) Fossil and subfossil birds from the Bahamas. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology, 48, 22–56.

    Olson, S.L. & Wingate, D.B. (2001) A new species of large flightless rail of the Rallus longirostris/elegans complex (Aves: Rallidae) from the late Pleistocene of Bermuda. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 114, 509–516.

    Oswald, J.A. & Steadman, D.W. (2018) The late Pleistocene bird community of New Providence, Bahamas. The Auk: Ornithological Advances, 135,359–377.
    https://doi.org/10.1642/auk-17-185.1

    Steadman, D.W., Morris, J.R. & Wright, N.A. (2013) A new species of late Pleistocene rail (Aves: Rallidae) from Abaco, the Bahamas. Paleontological Journal, 47, 1355–1364.
    https://doi.org/10.1134/S0031030113110130

    Steadman, D.W., Albury, N.A., Kakuk, B., Mead, J.I., Soto-Centeno, J.A., Singleton, H.M. & Franklin, J. (2015) Vertebrate community on an ice-age Caribbean island. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 112, 5963–5971. [E5963–E5971]
    https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1516490112

    Steadman, D.W. & Takano, O.M. (2016) A new extinct species of Snipe (Aves: Scolopacidae: Gallinago) from the West Indies. Zootaxa, 4109 (3), 345–358.
    https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4109.3.5

    Zelenkov, N.V., Panteleyev, A.V. & De Pietri, V.L. (2017) Late Miocene rails (Aves: Rallidae) from southwestern Russia. Palaeobiology Palaeoenvironment, 97, 791–805.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-017-0276-1