St. Helena Crake

Taxobox
name = Saint Helena Crake
status = EX
status_system = iucn3.1
extinct = Early 16th. century


image_width =
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Aves
ordo = Gruiformes
familia = Rallidae
genus = "Porzana"
species = "P. astrictocarpus"
binomial = "Porzana astrictocarpus"
binomial_authority = (Olson, 1973)
range_

range_map_width = 250px
range_map_caption = Location of Saint Helena. The St Helena Crake or St Helena Rail ("Porzana astrictocarpus") is an extinct bird species from St Helena, one of two flightless rails which have survived on that island until the early 16th century.

After American ornithologist Alexander Wetmore described bones of the large St Helena Swamphen ("Atlantisia podarces") from Prosperous Bay, St Helena, in 1963, American paleontogologist Storrs Olson found almost complete skeletons of the St Helena Crake in the same region in 1973. These skeletons consists of bones which were smaller than the bones of "Atlantisia podarces". Due to the peculiar shape of the carpometacarpus Olson named this species "Porzana astrictocarpus".

Olson proceeded on the assumption that the St Helena Crake was a derivative of the Baillon's Crake (Porzana pusilla) which is widespread in Europe and Africa. Thus, that there were no predators on St Helena and it had lost its ability to fly. However, when St Helena was colonised around 1502, the settlers brought a lot of mammals to the island, which sealed the fate of the St Helena Crake.

Further reading

* Storrs L. Olson, Paleornithology of St Helena Island, south Atlantic Ocean, Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 23 (1975)

External links

* Database entry includes justification for why this species is extinct