New Guinea Flightless Rail Megacrex inepta Scientific name definitions

36–38 cm. Sexes alike. Large, powerful flightless rail , with long heavy legs and very short, decomposed tail; easily distinguished from sympatric rallids on structure, size and plumage. Runs strongly, and flicks wings upwards while moving around. Young bird has brownish black hairy plumes on crown and in lines on side of head and on throat; mantle browner than in adult. Race pallida has paler, more buffy sides of lower neck and body.

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Editor's Note: Additional distribution information for this taxon can be found in the 'Subspecies' article above. In the future we will develop a range-wide distribution article.

Mangrove forests, wet thickets, swamp forest and riverine bamboo thickets in lowlands.

None recorded.

Nothing recorded.

Undescribed; two downy young obtained at L Daviumbu, near R Fly in Sept (latter part of dry season). Downy chick is black on head, and brownish black on body, with upperparts darker than underparts.

Not globally threatened (Least Concern). Poorly known, and previously assessed as Data Deficient, and subsequently Near Threatened. Very rarely seen, but may be locally common, especially in areas of sago harvesting; regarded by local people as not uncommon near Kiunga (on upper R Fly). Within its range, lowland forest is being cleared relatively slowly; for example, in mainland coastal provinces of Papua New Guinea 1·3% of forest was lost and a further 2·9% logged between 2002 and 2014 BirdLife International (2017) Species factsheet: Megacrex inepta. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 30/12/2017. . Despite being flightless, no obvious threats except perhaps from feral pigs, and possibly from casual hunting by local people while collecting sago; powerful enough to frighten dogs by kicking and stabbing before escaping into dense cover or up into trees. Initial populations probably small because of specialized habitat requirements. However, since population may be larger than suspected, and rate of decline fairly slow, it was downlisted in 2017 and is no longer of conservation concern.