Zapornia

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Zapornia
Baillon's crake, Zapornia pusilla
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Gruiformes
Family: Rallidae
Genus: Zapornia
Leach, 1816
Type species
Gallinula minuta[1]
Montagu, 1813
Species

10 living, and see text

Synonyms

Aphanolimnas Sharpe, 1892
Aphanolymnas (lapsus)
Corethrura G.R.Gray, 1846 (non Hope, 1843[verification needed]: preoccupied)
Kittlitzia Hartlaub, 1891[verification needed] (non Hartert, 1891: preoccupied)
Limnobaenus Sundevall, 1873
Limnocorax Peters, 1854
Nesophylax Murphy, 1924
Palugalla Balatzki, 2011
Pennula Dole, 1878
Phalaridion Kaup, 1829
Porzanoidea Mathews, 1912
Porzanula Frohawk, 1892
Rallites Pucheran, 1845
Schoenocrex Roberts, 1922
Schoenoscrex (lapsus)

Zapornia is a genus of birds in the rail family Rallidae. It was included in Porzana for much of the late 20th century.[2] These smallish to tiny rails are found across most of the world, but are entirely absent from the Americas except as wind-blown stray birds (which are regularly encountered on the Atlantic coasts however). A number of species, and probably an even larger number of prehistorically extinct ones, are known only from small Pacific islands; several of these lost the ability to fly in the absence of terrestrial predators. They are somewhat less aquatic than Porzana proper, inhabiting the edges of wetlands, reedbelts, but also drier grass- and shrubland and in some cases open forest.[3]

They are medium brown to blackish above, at least from the neck backwards but usually also on the top of the head, uniformly coloured or with some rather inconspicuous (unlike the boldly spotted Porzana proper) pattern of some blackish and/or whitish spots on the wings and back and/or a grey stripe above the eyes. The lower parts, from the bill to the legs, have grey plumage in most species - ranging from pale to almost black -, but are light ruddy-brown in a few. Between legs and tail, the plumage is brown to black, and in many species features more or less conspicuous whitish barring as in many other genera of rails (including Porzana proper). Some species (in particular small-island ones) appear uniformly drab brown or blackish-grey, with little discernible pattern when not seen up close. The eyes are usually red to chestnut-brown; the bill is greenish-yellow in most species, but bright yellow or blackish in a few. The legs have a greenish to reddish colouration even in the otherwise quite uniformly dusky species, and in some species are bright red[3]

Taxonomy and systematics[edit]

Zapornia crakes were traditionally included in the Spotted crake's genus Porzana, but within their subfamily they are not closely related at all

The genus Zapornia was introduced in 1816 by the English zoologist William Elford Leach in a catalogue of animals in the British Museum. He included a single species, the Little crake, which is therefore the type species.[4] The genus name is a near-anagram of the French ornithologist Louis-Pierre Vieillot's genus Porzana.[5]

However, Leach's proposal was not widely adopted. During the 1840s it was used briefly as a "wastebin taxon" for newly-discovered small rails from all over the world, few of which actually belonged to today's Zapornia clade; in 1880, even the Slender-billed flufftail was placed here, which eventually turned out to be no rail (family Rallidae), but rather an aberrant crake-like member of the flufftail family Sarothruridae. Subsequently, Leach's genus was generally synonymized with Porzana, assuming that species such as the Little and Baillon's crake were merely diminutive representatives of that genus. From the late 19th to the mid-20th century, any newly-discovered Zapornia crakes were either assigned to new and usually monotypic genera, or – increasingly often – lumped with their presumed relatives in Porzana. In his 1973 review of rail systematics, Storrs Olson found the mutual delimitation of the (loosely-circumscribed) Porphyrio and Amaurornis "[o]ne of the most difficult problems in rail taxonomy" and found no way to resolve it to his satisfaction. He concluded that the two genera were polyphyletic with regard to each other, and recommended including the numerous small segregate genera of Pacific island crakes in Porphyria, and the African crakes sometimes separated as Limnocorax in Amaurornis, until a satisfying solution for the delimitation of the two larger genera could be proposed.[6]

The Red-necked crake (Rallina tricolor) is among the closest living relatives of Zapornia

The first cladistic analyses, using morphological data, found it almost impossible to resolve any phylogenetic structure in Porzana and similar genera, but indicated that the entire group was closely related to Amaurornis bush-hen and the Laterallus crakes, as well as to coots (Fulica) and moorhen (Gallinula).[3][7] Molecular phylogenetic studies starting in 2002[8] revealed that Porzana proper was a well-distinct lineage which had a basal position among the entire aforementioned group, to which the subfamily name Himanthornithinae was applied as it also included the singular Nkulengu rail of genus Himantornis, a highly aberrant tropical rainforest species that was long considered to be the most "primitive" living rail. However, molecular data places not only the Nkulengu rail within the subfamily containing Porzana and its allies, but also the huge swamphen (Porphyrio) which morphological analysis had resolved as another one of the most ancient extant lineages of rails (although Olson in 1973 had correctly allied them with the moorhen and Porphyrio). Unlike the other rail subfamily, Rallinae, which includes mostly mid-sized amphibious species, the Himanthornithinae unite both very large and very small rails, as well as decidedly aquatic and strongly terrestrial lineages; it is thus unsurprising that the morphological data could not resolve such an adaptive radiation to satisfaction.[2][3][9][10]

As for the Zapornia crakes, they were found to be well distinct from Porzana, leading to the reinstatement of the old genus. In addition, some species traditionally placed in Amaurornis were found to actually belong in Zapornia. Surprisingly (except from a biogeographical perspective), the closest living relatives of Zapornia were found to be a group of South Asian crakes of genus Rallina, whose range is essentially surrounded by that of Zapornia. Rallina crakes are adapted to a more terrestrial habitat and thus differ more strongly from Zapornia in anatomy than might be expected given their close relationship; also, Rallina as traditionally circumscribed included a number of species which – similar to the Slender-billed flufftail initially being placed in Zapornia – actually belonged to the flufftail family and are nowadays separated as genus Rallicula. The morphology of Rallina is thus strongly convergent with the unrelated Rallicula flufftails, as well as strongly divergent from its actual closest relatives in Zapornia, causing purely morphological studies to fail recovering their true relationships.[2][7][10][11][12][13]

Species[edit]

The genus contains the following extant species:[11][12]

Image Common name Scientific name Distribution
Black crake Zapornia flavirostra
Formerly in Amaurornis, Limnocorax or Porzana		 Sub-Saharan Africa
Ruddy-breasted crake Zapornia fusca
Formerly in Amaurornis or Porzana		 South, East, and Southeast Asia
Band-bellied crake Zapornia paykullii
Formerly in Amaurornis or Porzana		 Breeds in northeastern Asia, winters in Southeast Asia
Brown crake Zapornia akool
Formerly in Amaurornis or Porzana		 South Asia
Little crake Zapornia parva
Formerly in Porzana		 Breeds from Central Europe to western Asia, winters in northern Africa and Southwest Asia
Baillon's crake Zapornia pusilla
Formerly in Porzana		 Resident in southern and eastern Africa, Madagascar, parts of Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand; also breeds across temperate Eurasia and winters in South and Southeast Asia to southern Japan
Black-tailed crake Zapornia bicolor
Formerly in Amaurornis or Porzana		 Northern inland of Southeast Asia
Sakalava rail Zapornia olivieri
Formerly in Amaurornis or Porzana		 Western Madagascar
Spotless crake Zapornia tabuensis
Formerly in Porzana		 Philippines, New Guinea and Australia, across southern Pacific Ocean to Marquesas Islands and New Zealand
Henderson crake Zapornia atra
Formerly in Nesophylax or Porzana		 Henderson Island, southeastern Polynesia

Due to the uncertain relationships of the extinct species (see below), the internal phylogeny of Zapornia is not well resolved. Several clades can be distinguished with some certainty, however, and recognized as subgenera. Sometimes[14] they are even elevated to full genus level, but given the conflicting data about the basal radiation of Zapornia, this remains conjectural for the time being. In particular the African endemics Black crake and Sakalava rail are the source of much uncertainty; they were considered closely related, even a superspecies, and allied with the Black-tailed crake when these three were still included in Amaurornis. This assumption was not based on quantitative analyses however, but on the similar appearance of Sakalava rail and Black-tailed crake and the fact that the Sakalava rail occurs on the western coast of Madagascar while the Black crake is found on the African mainland across the Mozambique Channel. Altogether however, the Sakalava rail remains little-known, and consequently has rarely been included in modern studies.

The Black crake, meanwhile, was usually found in molecular phyogenetic analyses to be the most basal species of Zapornia as circumscribed here, but not always robustly so;[2][10][15] one early analysis of a limited amount of mtDNA data,[8] however, robustly allied it with the Brown crake. There have been few analyses including all of Black, Black-tailed and Brown crakes as well as the Sakalava rail, and the situation is further confounded by the discovery that due to a sequencing laboratory error the first published full mitochondrial genome of the Brown crake (GenBank KJ192198/NC_023982) was actually Common moorhen mtDNA, possibly with some contamination from the White-breasted waterhen,[16][17] causing unfounded doubts[18] about the Brown crake's inclusion in Zapornia. The Black crake would constitute subgenus Limnocorax, but whether this is the basalmost branch of the living Zapornia (and thus the foremost candidate for splitting off the present genus) and/or includes the Brown crake requires further study.

The Ruddy-breasted and Band-bellied crakes, on the other hand, were never considered anything but sister species with almost parapatric distribution; this is supported by all molecular phylogenetic studies including those two species, but their placement with regard to the Black Rail lineage is uncertain;[2][8][15][19][20] Ruddy-breasted and Band-bellied crakes may also represent an ancient lineage of Zapornia – perhaps even older than Limnocorax – and warrant recognition as subgenus (or even genus) Limnobaenus. Before the establishment of Limnobaenus, the Ruddy-breasted crake had already been designated as type species of a genus Corethrura by George Robert Gray; this name, confusingly, was at the same time considered by Ludwig Reichenbach for the typical flufftails but formally established for these only some years later, leading to its invalidity and eventual replacement by the current name Sarothrura. However, even before Gray, Frederick William Hope had established Corethrura as a genus of lophopid planthoppers, and thus Gray's name was invalid too.[21]

Likewise, a close relationship between the Little and Baillon's crakes has been suggested by most if not all authors from an early date onwards, and is well supported by the molecular data too. As this group contains the genus' type species, it would be subgenus Zapornia, but as it contains at least some if not most of the extinct members of the genus, its circumscription is not fully resolved.[2][8][15][20] Much of this uncertainty derives from the fact that a comprehensive study including the entire core group of Zapornia, including the recently-extinct species (to the extent they could be sampled for ancient DNA) has only been done once as of 2023, and the assessment relies on the limited molecular data available in 2002. While separating the Little crake in (sub)genus Palugalla has been proposed,[22] almost all subsequent autors preferred to retain all the core-group species in Zapornia. However, the Henderson and Spotless crakes (and presumably some extinct species) stand apart from the Little and Baillon's crakes, and their clade might also include the Black-tailed crake and indeed the Sakalava rail,[8] maybe even the Limnobaenus species.[20] If this group includes the extinct Hawaiian rail, the subgenus name Pennula would apply if the Limnobaenus lineage is not included. The proposed monotypic genera Aphanolimnas and Nesophylax would probably be included here (and Aphanolimnas would be the name of this group if split from Zapornia and if Pennula is affiliated with Limnobaenus and excluded from it), while Porzanula, established for the now-extinct Laysan rail, is quite confidently a recent derivative of Baillon's crake's ancestors, and would warrant synonymization with Zapornia no matter how this is circumscribed.[8][20]

The Brown crake has been variously assigned to the Limnocorax[8] or Zapornia sensu lato[2][15] clades; as mentioned above, the bulk of its published mtDNA data is erroneous. Intriguingly, one study combining morphological and DNA data[20] found the Isabelline bush-hen – one of the species generally retained in Amaurornis today – to be closely allied to the Brown crake, and consequently also warranting inclusion in Zapornia. This is not supported by the limited datasets analyzing correctly-sequenced mtDNA however,[8] and may be due to morphological convergence.[7]

Recent extinctions[edit]

As mentioned above, a number of recently-extinct Pacific island rails are also assigned to Zapornia nowadays:

Image Common name Scientific name Distribution
Laysan rail Zapornia palmeri
Formerly in Porzana or Porzanula		 Laysan (and introduced to Midway), Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, northern Polynesia; extinct mid-late 1944
Hawaiian rail Zapornia sandwichensis
Formerly in Pennula or Porzana		 Eastern uplands of the Big Island of Hawaii, northeastern Polynesia; extinct ~1890
Kosrae crake Zapornia monasa
Formerly in Aphanolimnas or Porzana		 Kosrae and possibly Ponapé, southern Micronesia; extinct mid-19th century
Tahiti crake Zapornia nigra
Formerly in Nesophylax or Porzana		 Tahiti, central Polynesia; extinct ~1800

The specimen used to describe the Tahiti crake has long been lost, quite likely even before it arrived at a museum, and thus the species' affiliations and even its very existence remain conjectural until new material evidence is found. One original painting by Georg Forster is presumed to document its former existence, but this has often been dismissed as Spotless or even Henderson crakes. If the Tahiti crake was indeed a distinct species, the specimen shown in the painting was part of a collection which also included Spotless crakes from Tahiti and Tonga (as per Johann Reinhold Forster's notes), causing subsequent authors who had no access to the specimen to mix them up.[23]

The other three extinct species are known from numerous (Laysan rail) or very few (the other two) specimens. In the case of the Hawaiian rail, colour differences among these specimen caused them to be assigned to two species, but more likely they are simply juvenile and adult birds of a single species. What limited ancient DNA has been recovered from them allies the Laysan rail robustly with Baillon's and Little crakes (i.e. subgenus Zapornia even in the most narrow circumscription) and the other two with the Spotless and Henderson crakes – which, if correct, would cause the (sub)genus Pennula to refer to all of them if they are not included in Zapornia.[14] Morphologically however, the Kosrae crake seems closer to the Black crake (though with considerable uncertainty)[7][24][25] while the Hawaiian rail is so similar to the Limnobaenus lineage that it might arguably be included in that subgenus (which would cause Aphanolimnas to apply to the Spotless/Henderson/Kosrae crake group, if that is seperated from Zapornia sensu stricto).[20]

Prehistoric extinctions[edit]

In addition, a number of prehistorically extinct rails – most if not all flightless – known from subfossils found on oceanic islands have been placed into Porzana. Their former range is not anywhere close to the present-day range of Porzana proper (nor much closer to the known fossil record of the genus), but within or closely adjacent to the range of Zapornia as attested by living and historically known species. Consequently, it is more likely that most or all of them are actually Zapornia, although a few might actually belong to the other major radiation of Pacific island rails, the larger Hypotaenidia species of subfamily Rallinae:[20]

The St. Helena crake has traditionally been considered an insular offshoot of Baillon's crake ancestors – basically the Laysan rail's equivalent from almost exactly the other side of the world –, and is officially placed in Zapornia by several authorities today.[11][12] However, even though no molecular data are available for it as of 2023, it has been included in several analyses of morphological and combined morphological-molecular datasets, which strongly suggest it is closer Zapornia than to Porzana in the modern sense, but without actually being part of Zapornia.[7][20][24]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Rallidae". aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 2023-07-27.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Garcia-R, Juan C.; Gibb, Gillian C. & Trewick, Steve A. (2014): Deep global evolutionary radiation in birds: Diversification and trait evolution in the cosmopolitan bird family Rallidae. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 81: 96–108. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2014.09.008 PDF fulltext
  3. ^ a b c d Taylor, P. Barry & van Perlo, Ber (1998): Rails: a guide to the rails, crakes, gallinules, and coots of the world (Helm Identification Guides). Yale University Press, New Haven. ISBN 0-300-07758-0.
  4. ^ Leach, William Elford (1816). Systematic Catalogue of the Specimens of the Indigenous Mammalia and Birds that are Preserved in the British Museum: with Their Localities and Authorities. London: Printed by Richard and Arthur Taylor. p. 34.
  5. ^ Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 413. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  6. ^ Olson, Storrs L. (1973): A Classification of the Rallidae. Wilson Bull. 85(4): 381-416. PDF fulltext
  7. ^ a b c d e Livezey, Bradley C. (1998): A phylogenetic analysis of the Gruiformes (Aves) based on morphological characters, with an emphasis on the rails (Rallidae). Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B 353(1378), 2077-2151. doi:10.1098/rstb.1998.0353 PDF fulltext
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h Slikas, Beth; Olson, Storrs L. & Fleischer, Robert C. (2002): Rapid, independent evolution of flightlessness in four species of Pacific Island rails (Rallidae): an analysis based on mitochondrial sequence data. J. Avian Biol. 33(1): 5-14. doi:10.1034/j.1600-048X.2002.330103.x PDF fulltext
  9. ^ Kirchman, Jeremy J. (2012): Speciation of flightless rails on islands: A DNA-based phylogeny of the typical rails of the Pacific. Auk 129(1): .56–69. doi:10.1525/auk.2011.11096 PDF fulltext
  10. ^ a b c Kirchman, Jeremy J.; McInerney, Nancy Rotzel; Giarla, Thomas C.; Olson, Storrs L.; Slikas, Elizabeth & Fleischer, Robert C. (2021): Phylogeny based on ultra-conserved elements clarifies the evolution of rails and allies (Ralloidea) and is the basis for a revised classification. Ornithology 138(4): .1–21. doi:10.1093/ornithology/ukab042 PDF fulltext
  11. ^ a b c Gill, Frank & Donsker, David (eds.) (2019): International Ornithologists' Union World Bird List Version 10.2: Flufftails, finfoots, rails, trumpeters, cranes, limpkin. Retrieved 25 July 2020
  12. ^ a b c Dickinson, Edward C. & Remsen, James Van Jr. (eds.) (2013): The Howard & Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World Vol.1: Non-passerines (4th ed.): 158. Aves Press, Eastbourne, UK. ISBN 978-0-9568611-0-8 Online version
  13. ^ Richard O. Prum Berv, Jacob S.; Dornburg, Alex; Field, Daniel J.; Townsend, Jeffrey P.; Lemmon, Emily Moriarty & Alan R. Lemmon (2015): A comprehensive phylogeny of birds (Aves) using targeted next-generation DNA sequencing. Nature 526(7574): 569–573. doi:10.1038/nature15697 PDF fulltext
  14. ^ a b Boyd, John H. III (2024): Taxonomy in Flux: Rallidae: Rails, Gallinules, Coots Version 3.07b, March 30, 2024. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  15. ^ a b c d Gaspar, Julien; Gibb, Gillian C. & Trewick, Steve A. (2020): Convergent morphological responses to loss of flight in rails (Aves: Rallidae). Ecol. Evol. 10(13): 6186-6207. doi:10.1002/ece3.6298 PDF fulltext
  16. ^ Sangster, George & Luksenburg, Jolanda A. (2021): Sharp Increase of Problematic Mitogenomes of Birds: Causes, Consequences, and Remedies. Genome Biol. Evol. 13(9): evab210, doi:10.1093/gbe/evab210 PDF fulltext Supplementary data
  17. ^ Sangster, George, Blokland, Jacob C., Gregory, Steven M.S. & Dickinson, Edward C. (2024): Gymnocrecini, Amaurornithini and Pardirallini: three new family-group names for rails, with comments on the taxonomic placement of Zapornia akool (Rallidae). Avian Systematics 2(4): 53–64. PDF fulltext
  18. ^ Boast, Alexander P.; Chapman, Brendan; Herrera, Michael B.; Worthy, Trevor H.; Scofield, R. Paul; Tennyson, Alan J.D.; Houde, Peter; Bunce, Michael; Cooper, Alan J. & Mitchell, Kieren J. (2019): Mitochondrial Genomes from New Zealand’s Extinct Adzebills (Aves: Aptornithidae: Aptornis) Support a Sister-Taxon Relationship with the Afro-Madagascan Sarothruridae. Diversity 11(2): 24 doi:10.3390/d11020024 PDF fulltext
  19. ^ Ruan, Luzhang; Wang, Yushi; Hu, Jinrun & Ouyang, Yi (2012): Polyphyletic Origin of the Genus Amaurornis Inferred from Molecular Phylogenetic Analysis of Rails. Biochem. Genet. 50(11-12): 959–966. doi:10.1007/s10528-012-9535-z
  20. ^ a b c d e f g h Garcia-R, Juan C. & Matzke, Nicholas J. (2021): Trait-dependent dispersal in rails (Aves: Rallidae): Historical biogeography of a cosmopolitan bird clade. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 159: 107106. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2021.107106 PDF preprint
  21. ^ Penhallurick, John (2003): Notes on some genera and subgenera of rails (Rallidae). Bull. Br. Ornithol. Club 123(1): 33-45. PDF fulltext
  22. ^ Balatskiy, N.N. (2011): Болотный погоныш Palugalla gen. n. (Ralliformes, Aves). ["New swamp crake genus Palugalla (Ralliformes, Aves)"] [in Russian] Russkiy ornitologicheskiy zhurnal 20(691): 1907-1912. PDF fulltext
  23. ^ Walters, Michael (1988): Probable validity of Rallus nigra Miller, an extinct species from Tahiti. Notornis 35(4): 265-269. PDF fulltext
  24. ^ a b Livezey, Bradley C. (2003): Evolution of Flightlessness in Rails (Gruiformes: Rallidae): Phylogenetic, Ecomorphological, and Ontogenetic Perspectives. Ornithol. Monogr. 53: 1-654. doi:10.2307/40168337 PDF fulltext
  25. ^ Note that the 2021 analysis of Garcia-R & Matzke includes two datasets for the Black crake, one as Amaurornis flavirostra and another as Zapornia flavirostra; it is unclear to what extent this has confounded the species' placement. Also, the morphological dataset of Livezey (2003) does not closely ally the Laysan rail to the Baillon's/Little crakes, but this is probably due to the confounding effect of the Australian crake, one of the species retained in Porzana today.


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