Kingdom Animalia Class Aves Family Rallidae Rank Species | Phylum Chordata Order Gruiformes Genus Gallirallus | |
Similar ‘Eua rail, Great O‘ahu crake, Forbes's snipe | ||
The Niue rail (Gallirallus huiatua) is an extinct species of flightless bird in the Rallidae, or rail family.
Contents
History
The rail was described in 2000 from subfossil bones collected in January 1995 by paleozoologist Trevor Worthy at the Anakuli cave site in Hakupu village, on the island of Niue in West Polynesia. The age range of about 5300 to 3600 year BP for fossil material collected from the site predates human settlement of the island.
Etymology
The specific epithet comes from the Niuean words hui (bones) and atua (of the dead).
References
Niue rail Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA