First Records of the Spotted Rail (Pardirallus Maculatus) for the United States, Chile, Bolivia and Western Mexico
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First records of the Spotted Rail (Pardirallus maculatus) for the United States, Chile, Bolivia and western Mexico Breeding range extensionsfor this elusive species,plus documentation of wanderings as much as 1700 miles Kenneth C. Parkes, Douglas P. Kibbe, and Edward L. Roth have a fairly continuous range in suitable I• SPOTTEDa NeotropicalRAIL(Pardirallus species, roughlymaculatus) mid- habitat throughout the Caribbean slope of way in size between the familiar Virginia Middle America" -- the limitation of their (Railus limicola) and King (R. elegans)Rails prediction to the Caribbean slope was of North America. Although the senior probably superfluous,as we shall see. In author previously followed those authors South America, the known range is also dis- who merge Pardirallus into Railus (Dicker- junct. It was given by Meyer de Schauensee man and Parkes, 1969),Olson (1973)has pre- (1966) as: "SURINAM; FRENCH GUIANA; sented convincingevidence that the Spotted westward through VENEZUELA (Aragua, Rail and its South American relatives are not Carabobo, Portuguesa and M•rida) to the at all closely related to true Rallus, justifying Cauca Valley in COLOMBIA. Eastern resurrection of the genus Pardirallus. The BRAZIL from Pardi, Ceani, Pernambuco, argument of Ripley (1977: 27) that the many Alagoas and Bahia, spottily south to Rio anatomical differences between Railus and Grande do Sul; URUGUAY; PARAGUAY, Pardirallus are not of a generic nature but ARGENTINA south to Tucum,•in, C6rdoba, merely reflect "adaptations to open swamp and Buenos Aires. Western PERU in Piura, life and more migratory habit as contrasted Lambayeque and Libertad. Trinidad and to tropical .jungle life and reduced, flapping Tobago." There is also an isolated popula- flight," respectively, is clearly irrelevant. tion in Cuba, and the speciesis said to have Pardirallus maculatus, in spiteof its anatomi- formerly occurredin Jamaica(Bond, 1974) cal "adaptations," sharesthe typical habitat The Spotted Rail was first described by and flight ability of Rallus and is by no means Boddaert in 1783, based on a specimenfrom a bird of tropical jungles. Cayenne, French Guiana. Bangs and Peck Like many other membersof its family, the (1908) gave the subspecificname insolitusto Spotted Rail is usually shy and elusive. a single specimenfrom British Honduras, at Moreover, its preferred habitat is dense that time the only known specimen from freshwater marshes of cattails or other tall Middle America. Later, Bangs (1913) gave grasses, sedges,rice, etc., where it could the name inoptatusto the Cubanpopulation, escapeobservation for many years. Although having compared two Cuban specimensw•th there is an apparent hiatus in the known the still unique type of insolitusand one old range of the species in Central America (it South American specimen. Watson (1962) has not been recorded from Guatemala, Hon- assembled 13 specimensfrom Cuba, five of duras [contra Haverschmidt, 1968], El Salva- which he had collected himself. He found that dor, or Nicaragua), Birkenholz and Jenni the alleged characters of inoptatus were (1964) were almost certainly correct in their invalid, with the range of variation among prediction that this species "will prove to Cuban birds being the same as that among Volume32, Number3 295 South American. Bond (1963) and Ripley County, Pennsylvania. In particular, he was (1977) followed Watson in synonymizing surveying a 500-foot natural draft cooling tnoptatus with rnaculatus. tower, searching a walkway around the LTHOUGHSOME AUTHORS haveconsidered tower about 60 feet above its base. On the the Middle American race insolitus as a east-southeast side of the tower, he found a "weakly characterized form" (Bond, 1963), large, dark rail that had obviouslystruck the it is, in fact, an excellent subspecies.The tower itself, and slid down to lodge between brown feather edgingsof the back and wings the inner walkway and the tower wall. He are darker and duller in insolitus, but these tentatively identified it as a juvenile King colors are subjectto wear and fading, and the Rail, an understandable error as this is the differences are not always obvious unless only large rail to be expected in western unworn birds are being compared. A much Pennsylvania, and donated the specimento better character, which is not eliminated by Carnegie Museum of Natural History wear, is the nature of the white markingsof Parkeswas away when the bird wasdelivered, the upperparts that give the species its but when he took it out of the freezer upon English name. The white spots of the lower his return he was astonished to find that it back and scapulars of the nominate race are was an adult Spotted Rail. Although Kibbe larger than those of insolitus, and are elon- surveyed the tower only once a week, the gated, those of the scapulars being streaks freshness of the thawed specimen made it rather than spots. Although other authors evident that it must have struck the tower seem to have missedthis point, there is also a during the night of November 11-12. It had difference in bill size. Culmen lengths of the clearly been following the fiver valley; specimens in the American and Carnegie althoughthe tower is 500 feet tall, the bluffs Museums of Natural History were as fol- on either side of the Ohio in this area rise to lows' rnadulatus,12 c•c• 43-48 mm (mean well above 1000feet. The Ohio and its major 45 5), 3 9 9 41.5-42.5 (41.8). insolitus, 3 c•c• tributaries wind around so much in this 46-52 (49.3); 2 9 9 41, 45. Measurements pre- general area that it is impossibleto know sented by Watson (1962) indicate that the what the bird's general flight path had been Cuban population, although like maculatus Accordingto Storrs Olson (pers.comm. to m color, is nearer insolitusin bill length:5 c•c• Parkes), there are no more than about three 47.5-50.5 (49.4); 6 9 9 43-48.5 (45.8). Larger skeletons of Pardirallus maculatus in exist- series would undoubtedlyadd to the overlap ence in museums.Parkes therefore prepared of measurements,but insolitusseems definitely the Pennsylvaniaspecimen as a study skin, to have larger bills than maculatus;bills of the but also prepared a complete skeleton latter are more slender as well as shorter. lacking only the bill and the wing and leg Th•s species is unusual not only among bones of the right side. The bird was an adult rails but among birds in general in that them male, moderately fat. It was not weighed are three color phasesin the juvenal plumage AlthoughRipley (1977) mentionsonly animal (Dickerman and Haverschmidt, 1971). No food for this species, the stomach of the corresponding color phases have been des- Pennsylvania bird contained only seeds of cnbed among adults, but the number of Potamogeton epihydrus, a common and molting specimensavailable is not enough to widely distributed pondweed well known as a determine whether the "individual varia- food of our native rails. tion" described by Watson and others may, HEQUESTION NATURALLY ARISES asto the m fact, be correlated with the juvenal possibility of this bird having escaped plumage color phases. from captivity. There was no physicalindica- tion that the bird had been a captive -- the NthenNOVEMBER working12, for1976, anKibbe, environmental whowas bill and feet were perfectly normal both in impact firm in Pittsburgh, made his regular structure and color when the bird was weekly survey for avian migrant mortality at thawed out. Relatively few speciesof Rallidae a nuclear power plant on the south bank of are imported alive into the United States, the Ohio River at Beaver Valley, Beaver and this species is not listed in any of the 296 AmericanBirds, May 1978 bility of hurricane transport. This cannot be the explanation for the presenceof a Spotted Rail in Pennsylvania in November 1976, however. It happens that 1976 was an unusual year: "An anomalousfeature of this [1976] season is the complete absence of storms in both the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico" (Lawrence, 1977). Eliminating importation by man and trans- portation by windstorm, we are left with no real clues as to how this Spotted Rail got to Pennsylvania. However, members of the family Rallidae are notorious for wandering far out of their normal ranges,in spite of their deceptively weak-looking flight. An out- standing example is the familiar Purple Gal- Figure 1. Spotted Rail, posterior view, showing iinule (Porphyrula martinica), which has extended wing from above. wandered as far as the subantarctic island of South Georgia as well as to the Falkland Islands, Tristan da Cunha Island, Ascension Island, St. Helena Island, and South Africa (Ripley, 1977). Almost all of the Pacific islands are inhabited by rails, which had to have reached these islands by long trans- oceanic flights (possibly combined with raft- ing). Prior to the preparation of this paper, there was nothingin the literature to suggest that Pardira!!us maculatus might be subject to similar wanderings. Two unpublished specimens in the American Museum of Natural History demonstrate that such wandering has, in fact, taken place in previ- ous years. On September 19, 1906, J. T. Figure 2. Spotted Rail, anterior view, showing Nichols picked up a Spotted Rail of the underside of extended left wing. Photos/Kenneth nominate race (now AMNH 90380) aboard C. Parkes. ship at 2 IøS, 37øW, which is about 200 miles recent publications of the U.S. Fish and southeast of the nearest point of land on Wildlife Service that include all live birds the Brazilian coast. Even more dramatic known to have been imported here. Avicui- was another specimen of P.m. maculatus turalists consulted by Parkes have never (AMNH 445164) killed by a cat on Juan Fer- heard of its being kept in this country. The nandez Island, Chile, and preserved by a only clue to the bird's ultimateorigin lies in native who gave it to Rollo Beck about the geographicvariation in the species.The November I, 1913.This specimen,a mummy nearest known breeding localities to Pennsyl- lacking many feathers but clearly identifi- vania are Cuba and the coastal lowlands of able, constitutes the first record of the Veracruz, Mexico.