St. Helena Crake

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Saint Helena Crake
Conservation status
Extinct  (Early 16th. century)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Gruiformes Family: Rallidae Genus: Porzana Species: P. astrictocarpus
Binomial name
Porzana astrictocarpus (Olson, 1973)
Location of Saint Helena.

The St. Helena Crake or St. Helena Rail (Porzana astrictocarpus) is an extinct bird species from Saint 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, Saint 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 is proceed 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 it had lost its ability to fly. However, when St. Helena was colonised by 1502 the settlers brought a lot of mammals to the island which sealed the fate of the St. Helena Crake.

[edit] Further reading

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

[edit] External links

• BirdLife International (2004). Porzana astrictocarpus. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 9 November 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is extinct