The Tongatapu rail (Gallirallus hypoleucus) was a species of bird in the family Rallidae. It was apparently native to the island of Tongatapu in the Kingdom of Tonga, in Polynesia in the south-west Pacific Ocean. It is known only from brief descriptions of a specimen, now lost, collected from Tongatapu in 1777 in the course of James Cook's third voyage to the Pacific, and from a contemporary illustration by Georg Forster.[1]
| Tongatapu rail Temporal range: Late Holocene
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| Watercolour painting by Georg Forster | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Gruiformes |
| Family: | Rallidae |
| Genus: | Gallirallus |
| Species: | †G. hypoleucus
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| Binomial name | |
| †Gallirallus hypoleucus | |
| Synonyms | |
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References edit
- ^ Medway, D.G. (2010). "The Tongatapu rail Gallirallus hypoleucus (Finsch & Hartlaub, 1867) – an extinct species resurrected?" (PDF). Notornis. 57 (4): 199–203.
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