Snipe-rail Temporal range: Late
Holocene
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Holotype from Auckland Museum. | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Gruiformes |
Family: | Rallidae |
Genus: | †
Capellirallus Falla, 1954 |
Species: | †C. karamu
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Binomial name | |
†Capellirallus karamu Falla, 1954
[1]
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The snipe-rail (Capellirallus karamu) is an extinct flightless rail endemic to the North Island of New Zealand. The species' name is derived from the Karamu Cave [2] 21 kilometres (13 mi) from Hamilton [2] where the holotype was discovered in 1954. [2]
The snipe-rail was a relatively small rail [3] which had a bill of about 7 cm, very long in proportion to its body size. [3] Its weight was about 240 g. [3] The type material consists of an incomplete skeleton, including vertebrae, a pelvis, and a hind limb. [2] Since the discovery of these remains, many complete skeletons [2] consisting of hundreds of bones [3] have been unearthed on different sites in the North Island. [3] Its evolutionary relationships to other rail species are unclear [3] but the structure of its bones suggests that it might have been a relative of the likewise extinct Chatham rail. [2] [3] Relative to its body size, the snipe-rail had the smallest wings of all known rail species. [2] [3] It also had a disproportionately large tarsometatarsus. [3]
The bone findings were in the western areas of the North Island [3] where wetter, closed- canopy rainforests prevailed. [3] The bird's long bill suggests that it was able to forage by probing in a similar manner to kiwi. [3]
The exact date of the snipe-rail's extinction is unknown, but it is supposed that the decline began in the 13th century, [3] when the Kiori/ Polynesian rat became widespread in New Zealand. [3] [4]