[bluechaffinch]

Having read up a great deal on rails and crakes of late, it suddenly struck me as rather odd that, unlike most other islands in the world, there appears to be an absence of endemic species/subspecies of Rallidae in the Macaronesian region.

Anyone have a clue why so?

[jurek]

Wetland areas not searched after bones? Macaronesia seems to lack waterbirds in general. Maybe Cape Verde, if they have endemic Bourne's Heron semi-species, are worth looking, too?

[bluechaffinch]

Yes, maybe they just haven't been found yet although given the highly adaptive nature of this family, you'd think that as elsewhere you would have various rails and crakes inhabiting the different ecological zones and not necessarily tied to wetlands. Just think of the varied habitats on a large island like Tenerife (also close to a large land mass) when compared with some of the tiny volcanic specks in the Pacific...it's very intruiging!

[MJB]

Originally Posted by bluechaffinch

Having read up a great deal on rails and crakes of late, it suddenly struck me as rather odd that, unlike most other islands in the world, there appears to be an absence of endemic species/subspecies of Rallidae in the Macaronesian region. Anyone have a clue why so?

OK, so Ascension Island is not exactly Macaronesian, but Atlantisia elpenor (if it hasn't been reclassified), the flightless Ascension Rail, is known only from bones recovered from fumaroles. Presumably the bones' survival was due to a dry atmosphere. I understand that a flightless Night Heron also was identified there only from bones, and that possibly there are other extinct species to be identified from similar remains.

Quite apart from bird fossils and subfossils being rare because of the fragility of bones and the tendency for warm moist areas to advance decay of biological matter, the islands of Macaronesia would have been frequent stopping-off points for hungry and thirsty sailors. As the tale of the Dodo has it, any flightless bird (a characteristic of island endemics) without a predator-avoidance response approaching such humans is, to put it in the vernacular, 'toast'.
MJB

[bluechaffinch]

Originally Posted by MJB

OK, so Ascension Island is not exactly Macaronesian, but Atlantisia elpenor (if it hasn't been reclassified), the flightless Ascension Rail, is known only from bones recovered from fumaroles. Presumably the bones' survival was due to a dry atmosphere. I understand that a flightless Night Heron also was identified there only from bones, and that possibly there are other extinct species to be identified from similar remains.

Quite apart from bird fossils and subfossils being rare because of the fragility of bones and the tendency for warm moist areas to advance decay of biological matter, the islands of Macaronesia would have been frequent stopping-off points for hungry and thirsty sailors. As the tale of the Dodo has it, any flightless bird (a characteristic of island endemics) without a predator-avoidance response approaching such humans is, to put it in the vernacular, 'toast'.
MJB

Yes, I'm sure any rail-like birds would have made a tasty snack for hungry sailors. However, the European conquest of the Canaries is pretty well documented (in English too as it happens) and as far as I'm aware there are no mentions of such birds, as there are from lots of other islands. Possibly any birds became extinct long before Europeans arrived and were killed off by the indigenous populations and their domestic animals? There have been excavations of large middens from pre-European times - no rails thoough I believe..