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Tongatapu rail

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Extinct species of bird

Tongatapu rail
Temporal range: Late Holocene
Watercolour painting by Georg Forster
Conservation status

Extinct  (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Gruiformes
Family: Rallidae
Genus: Gallirallus
Species: †G. hypoleucus
Binomial name
†Gallirallus hypoleucus
(Finsch & Hartlaub, 1867)
Synonyms
  • Rallus hypoleucus

The Tongatapu rail (Gallirallus hypoleucus) was a species of bird in the family Rallidae. It was apparently native to the island of Tongatapu in the Kingdom of Tonga, in Polynesia in the south-west Pacific Ocean. It is known only from brief descriptions of a specimen, now lost, collected from Tongatapu in 1777 in the course of James Cook's third voyage to the Pacific, and from a contemporary illustration by Georg Forster.

References

  1. Medway, D.G. (2010). "The Tongatapu rail Gallirallus hypoleucus (Finsch & Hartlaub, 1867) – an extinct species resurrected?" (PDF). Notornis. 57 (4): 199–203.
Taxon identifiers
Gallirallus hypoleucus


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