The Rodrigues Rail or Leguat's Gelinote (Erythromachus leguati) is an extinct, flightless rail that was endemic to the Mascarene island of Rodrigues, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. It was described as having grey plumage, a red beak, red legs, and a naked red patch around the eye. The beak varied between specimens from straight to curved, but the reason for this is unknown.
It is sometimes assigned to the genus Aphanapteryx, along with its close relative the Red Rail of Mauritius, but they are commonly kept separate. Its relationship with other rails is unclear. It was described as being attracted to red objects, which humans exploited while hunting it.
The Rodrigues Rail is believed to have become extinct in the mid-18th century because of destruction of its habitat and predation by humans and introduced animals. Apart from information gathered from subfossil bones, the bird is poorly understood and is only known from two contemporaneous descriptions, and there are no extant illustrations of it. The bird was first described by François Leguat, a French Huguenot refugee marooned on Rodrigues in 1691, and was named leguati in his honour. The second description is by Julien Tafforet, also marooned on the island in 1726. Subfossil remains were first described and connected with the extant descriptions in 1874.
Read more about Rodrigues Rail: Taxonomy, Description, Behaviour and Ecology, Extinction, References
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