Amaurornis is a genus of birds in the rail family Rallidae. The species in this genus are typically called bush-hens. A monotypic subtribe, Amaurornithina, was proposed for this genus.[1]

Amaurornis
White-breasted waterhen (Amaurornis phoenicurus)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Gruiformes
Family: Rallidae
Genus: Amaurornis
Reichenbach, 1853
Type species
Gallinula olivacea
(Plain bush-hen)
Meyen, 1834
Species

see text

Synonyms

Poliolimnas Sharpe, 1893 (but see text)

Taxonomy

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The genus Amaurornis was erected by the German naturalist Ludwig Reichenbach in 1853 with the plain bush-hen (Amaurornis olivacea) as the type species.[2] The name comes from the Greek amauros, meaning "dusky" or "brown" and ornis, meaning "bird".[3]

The New Guinea flightless rail was sometimes included in this genus, but more often held to constitute a distinct monotypic genus Megacrex. The first cladistic studies of rails, based on morphology, strongly suggested that Amaurornis as traditionally defined is not monophyletic, and that several species placed here are in fact closer to the small crakes traditionally placed in Porzana. This was subsequently confirmed by molecular data. However, these smallish species are probably not close to the large members of Porzana either, and would warrant re-establishment of the old genus Zapornia.[1][4]

Species

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The genus contains five species:[5]

Image Scientific name Common Name Distribution
  Amaurornis phoenicurus White-breasted waterhen tropical Asia from Pakistan east to Indonesia
  Amaurornis olivacea Plain bush-hen or Philippine bush-hen Philippines
Amaurornis magnirostris Talaud bush-hen Talaud Islands, Indonesia
  Amaurornis isabellina Isabelline bush-hen Sulawesi
  Amaurornis moluccana Pale-vented bush-hen, rufous-tailed bush-hen or rufous-tailed waterhen Australia, the Moluccan Islands, New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands

References

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  Media related to Amaurornis at Wikimedia Commons

  1. ^ a b Livezey, B.C. (1998). "A phylogenetic analysis of the Gruiformes (Aves) based on morphological characters, with an emphasis on the rails (Rallidae)". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 353 (1378): 2077–2151. doi:10.1098/rstb.1998.0353. PMC 1692427.
  2. ^ Reichenbach, Ludwig (1853). Handbuch der speciellen Ornithologie (in German). Vol. 1. Dresden and Leipzig: Expedition Vollständigsten Naturgeschichte. p. xxi.
  3. ^ Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London, UK: Christopher Helm. p. 43. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  4. ^ García-R, J.C.; Gibb, G.C.; Trewick, S.A. (2014). "Deep global evolutionary radiation in birds: Diversification and trait evolution in the cosmopolitan bird family Rallidae". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 81: 96–108. Bibcode:2014MolPE..81...96G. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2014.09.008. PMID 25255711.
  5. ^ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2019). "Flufftails, finfoots, rails, trumpeters, cranes, limpkin". World Bird List Version 9.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 8 July 2019.