The New Caledonian rail (Cabalus lafresnayanus ) is a large and drab flightless rail that is found on the island of New Caledonia in the Pacific. It is a dull brown above, with grey underparts, and has a yellowish, downward-curving bill. No one knows what it sounds like and it is not known whether it is nocturnal or crepuscular.
It most likely was driven to extinction from predation by feral cats, dogs, and pigs.
Nocturnality is an animal behavior characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal",...
Crepuscular animals are those that are active primarily during twilight (that is, the periods of dawn and dusk). This is distinguished from diurnal...
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TerrestrialTerrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land (e.g., cats, ants, snails), as compared with aquatic animals, which liv...
Oviparous animals are female animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive...
Precocial species are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching. Precocial species are normall...
Flightless birds are birds that through evolution lost the ability to fly. There are over 60 extant species including the well known ratites (ostri...
No
Not a migrantAnimals that do not make seasonal movements and stay in their native home ranges all year round are called not migrants or residents.
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This cryptic rail is only known from seventeen specimens taken between 1860 and 1890 on New Caledonia. This bird is supposed to live in evergreen forests and seems to have moved higher up on the island to escape introduced predators. Its diet consists of invertebrates, including earthworms.
Though the bird has not been confirmed since 1890, unconfirmed reports from the 1960s and 1984 say that some still live in the higher montane forests. A survey in 1998 produced no firm evidence from hunters or fieldwork. However, many still believe it persists in small numbers.
This bird was host to a species of parasite, the phtilopterid louse Rallicola piageti. This is not believed to have occurred on any other bird species . Hence, R. piageti may be coextinct today (May 1990).
The binomial commemorates the French ornithologist Frederic de Lafresnaye.
