Buff-banded rail
The buff-banded rail is a distinctively coloured, highly dispersive, medium-sized rail of the rail family, Rallidae. This species comprises several subspecies found throughout much of Australasia and the south-west Pacific region, including the Philippines, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and numerous smaller islands, covering a range of latitudes from the tropics to the subantarctic. The species was formerly placed in the genus Hypotaenidia.
Taxonomy
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson described and illustrated the buff-banded rail in his multi-volume Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in the Philippines. He used the French name Le rasle rayé des Philippines and the Latin name Rallus Philippensis Striatus. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson in his Ornithologie. One of these was the buff-banded rail. Linnaeus included a terse description, coined the binomial name Rallus philippensis and cited Brisson's work. The buff-banded rail was formerly placed in the genus Hypotaenidia but is now placed in the genus Gallirallus that was introduced by Frédéric de Lafresnaye in 1841.Subspecies
Numerous subspecies are recognised for the buff-banded rail because of repeated dispersion of birds to islands in the Pacific, often followed by founder effects and reduced potential for gene flow. The weka in New Zealand evolved from a lineage with common ancestry to modern buff-tailed banded rail populations, and has changed over time to become flightless.Twenty subspecies are recognised:
- G. p. andrewsi – Cocos Islands
- G. p. xerophila van Bemmel & Hoogerwerf, 1940 – Gunungapi Wetar
- G. p. wilkinsoni – Flores
- G. p. philippensis – Philippines, Borneo, Sulawesi and satellites, Bali and Lesser Sunda Islands
- G. p. pelewensis Mayr, 1933 – Palau
- G. p. anachoretae – Kaniet Islands
- G. p. admiralitatis Stresemann, 1929 – Admiralty Islands
- G. p. praedo – Skoki
- G. p. lesouefi – New Hanover Island, New Ireland, Tabar and Tanga
- G. p. meyeri Hartert, EJO, 1930 – Witu and New Britain
- G. p. christophori – Solomon Islands
- G. p. sethsmithi – Vanuatu and Fiji
- G. p. swindellsi – New Caledonia including Loyalty Islands
- G. p. goodsoni – Samoa and Niue
- G. p. ecaudata – Tonga
- G. p. assimilis – north North, north South and satellites of Stewart is.
- G. p. macquariensis – Macquarie Island
- G. p. lacustris – northwest, northeast, central, southeast New Guinea and Long Island
- G. p. tounelieri – Coral Sea Islands
- G. p. mellori – Moluccas, northwest, south New Guinea, Australia and Norfolk Island
Description