Galapagos crake

The Galapagos crake or Galapagos rail (Laterallus spilonota) is a small rail endemic to the Galapagos Islands. It resembles the closely related black rail of The Americas. It is threatened by introduced species, such as goats and cats, and is considered vulnerable.

Galapagos crake
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Gruiformes
Family: Rallidae
Genus: Laterallus
Species:
L. spilonota
Binomial name
Laterallus spilonota
(Gould, 1841)
Synonyms
  • Laterallus spilonotus

Description

The Galapagos crake is a small (15 cm) nearly flightless ground living bird. It has dark plumage, black overall with a greyer head and breast, and white spots on the back. It has a scarlet eye, a black bill, and short, nearly useless wings. They are very vocal with a wide range of calls.

Habits

The Galapagos crake lives in moist grasslands and forest, skulking in deep cover. In the Galapagos these habitats are generally found on islands with higher elevations (particularly on the islands of Santiago, Santa Cruz and Sierra Negra), and the rails are commonest higher up. They feed on invertebrates, mostly snails, isopods, dragonflies, bugs, ants, also taking berries and some seeds. They feed during the day, moving along the ground tossing leaves and investigating the leaf litter.

Unlike many island-dwelling rails, the Galapagos rail can fly, though not very well and not for long distances. Its flight has been described as awkward and laboured.[2]

Galapagos crakes and humans

The Galapagos crake, despite being a nearly flightless island living rail, has managed to survive the arrival of humans in the Galapagos. It is a confiding species that is curious of humans and will approach and investigate them, this naivety makes it vulnerable to feral cats, dogs and pigs. Introduced goats and cattle also cause habitat loss that causes a drop in their numbers. The removal of goats and cattle, and the resulting regeneration of trees, shrubs and grasses, leads quickly to a return of the rail. As most of the Galapagos crake's habitat lies in a national park, and efforts are underway to remove the introduced species doing the most harm, the future is looking better for these birds.

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gollark: You could actually analyze, roughly, demand for items via krist logs, except KristQL is down.
gollark: Preprogram your shop with the prices and locations of other shops (or I guess have it communicate with others over some defined interface), and when it runs low have it try and buy more stock from elsewhere and send drones to collect.
gollark: Hmm. Drones can fly around other people's claims *and* suck up items...
gollark: Make a shop which buys and sells items in one more unified system, and which adjusts buy/sell prices automatically based on how much it has. Maybe it could even communicate with other people's stores to figure out demand for some products.

References
  1. BirdLife International (2012). "Laterallus spilonotus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2012. Retrieved 26 November 2013.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  2. Franklin, A. B.; Clark, D. A.; Clark, D. B. (1979). "Ecology and behavior of the Galapagos Rail". The Wilson Bulletin: 202–221. JSTOR 4161201.
  • Taylor, B. (1998) Rails, a Guide to the Rails, Crakes, Gallinules and Coots of the World, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-07758-2
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