Zapornia

Zapornia
Baillon's crake, Zapornia pusilla
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Gruiformes
Family:	Rallidae
Genus:	Zapornia Leach, 1816
Type species
Gallinula minuta Montagu, 1813
Species
10 living, and see text
Synonyms
Aphanolimnas Sharpe, 1892 Aphanolymnas (lapsus) Kittlitzia Hartlaub 1892 (non Hartert, 1891: preoccupied) Limnocorax Peters, 1854 Nesophylax Murphy, 1924 Pennula Dole, 1879 Porzanula Frohawk, 1892

Zapornia is a genus of birds in the rail family Rallidae. It was included in Porzana for much of the late 20th century. 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.

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 darker 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 blackisch-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

Taxonomy

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. The genus name is a near-anagram of the French ornithologist Louis-Pierre Vieillot's genus Porzana. The species now placed in this genus were formerly assigned to Porzana and Amaurornis.

The genus contains the following species:

Image	Common name	Scientific name	Distribution
	Black crake	Zapornia flavirostra Formerly in Amaurornis, Limnocorax or Porzana	Sub-Saharan Africa
	Sakalava rail	Zapornia olivieri Formerly in Amaurornis or Porzana	Western Madagascar
	Ruddy-breasted crake	Zapornia fusca Formerly in Porzana	South, East, and Southeast Asia
	Band-bellied crake	Zapornia paykullii Formerly in Porzana	Breeds in northeastern Asia, winters in Southeast Asia
	Black-tailed crake	Zapornia bicolor Formerly in Amaurornis or Porzana	Northern inland of Southeast Asia
	Brown crake	Zapornia akool Formerly in Amaurornis or Porzana	South 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
	St. Helena crake	Zapornia astrictocarpus Formerly in Porzana	Extinct; formerly Saint Helena, Southern Atlantic
	Little crake	Zapornia parva Formerly in Porzana	Breeds from Central Europe to western Asia, winters in northern Africa and Southwest Asia
	Spotless crake	Zapornia tabuensis Formerly in Porzana	Philippines, New Guinea and Australia, across southern Pacific Ocean to Marquesas Islands and New Zealand
	Kosrae crake	Zapornia monasa Formerly in Aphanolymnas or Porzana	Extinct; formerly Kosrae and possibly Ponapé, southern Micronesia
	Tahiti crake	Zapornia nigra Formerly in Nesophylax or Porzana	Extinct; formerly Tahiti, Polynesia
	Henderson crake	Zapornia atra Formerly in Nesophylax or Porzana	Henderson Island, southeastern Polynesia
	Hawaiian rail	Zapornia sandwichensis Formerly in Pennula or Porzana	Extinct; formerly eastern uplands of the Big Island of Hawaii
	Laysan rail	Zapornia palmeri Formerly in Porzana or Porzanula	Extinct; formerly Laysan (and introduced to Midway), Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

In addition, a number of prehistorically extinct rails known from subfossils found on Pacific 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 or 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:

• "Porzana" keplerorum – Small Maui crake
• "Porzana" menehune – Liliput crake
• "Porzana" ralphorum Olson, 1973 – Great Oʻahu crake
• "Porzana" rua Steadman, 1986 – Mangaia crake
• "Porzana" severnsi Olson, 1973 – Great Maui crake
• "Porzana" ziegleri – Small Oʻahu crake
• "Porzana" sp. – Aiwa Levu crake
• "Porzana" sp. – Easter Island crake
• "Porzana" sp. – Great Big Island crake
• "Porzana" sp. – Great Kauaʻi crake
• "Porzana" sp. – Huahine crake
• "Porzana" sp. – Lesser Mangaia crake
• "Porzana" sp. – Malakula crake
• "Porzana" sp. – Marquesas crake (Nuku Hiva, Ua Huka; up to 2 species)
• "Porzana" sp. – Marianas crake (Aguiguan, Rota, Tinian; up to 3 species)
• "Porzana" sp. – Medium Kauaʻi crake
• "Porzana" sp. – Medium Maui crake
• "Porzana" sp. – Small Big Island crake
• "Porzana" sp. – Ua Huka crake