Diaphorapteryx hawkinsi

Hawkins's rail, also called the giant Chatham Island rail or in Moriori as mehonui, is an extinct species of flightless rail. It was endemic to the Chatham Islands east of New Zealand. It is known to have existed only on the main islands of Chatham Island and Pitt Island. Hawkins's rail was the largest terrestrial bird native to the Chatham Islands, around 40 centimetres (16 in) tall and weighing about 2 kilograms (4.4 lb). It had a long, downward curving beak. Historic accounts likely referring to the bird by the name "mehonui" suggest that it was red-brown in colour, and it has been compared to the weka in ecological habits, using its beak to probe decaying wood for invertebrates. Hawkins's rail likely became extinct due to overhunting by the islands native inhabitants, the Moriori, and the bird is known from skeletal remains found in their kitchen middens.

Diaphorapteryx hawkinsi

Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
DiaphorapteryxPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
Life habit
ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda

Time the record covers

At most 12 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 0 of 5 occurrencesHolocene — about 5 of 5 occurrences17 ka–0 Mya — about 5 occurrences512 ka0 Mya

5 occurrences of Diaphorapteryx hawkinsi on record, most of them in the Holocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

5 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Diaphorapteryx hawkinsi and its relatives

Holocene

Where Diaphorapteryx hawkinsi and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

31 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Diaphorapteryx hawkinsi, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 5 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Diaphorapteryx hawkinsi

Credit
Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Diaphorapteryx hawkinsi · nhmuk:pal:A287

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itDiaphorapteryx through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Forbes 1892)