The Bannockburn crake was a species of rail known from the 19–16 Ma (early Miocene) Bannockburn Formation of New Zealand, with fossils found in lake-bed deposits across multiple sites at Mata Creek and the Manuherikia River, St Bathans, Central Otago.

The holotype of the species (CM 2013.18.756, a complete right tarsometatarsus) is held by the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch. There are also 26 paratype specimens, which are split between Canterbury Museum (7) and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (19).

The Bannockburn crake was a small, extremely common rail that would have been similar in size to the more recently extinct Chatham Island rail. This species is found throughout the fossiliferous beds of the Bannockburn Formation, alongside both Manuherikia lacustrina (the Manuherikia duck, present only in the older beds) and Manuherikia primadividua (another duck species that replaces M. lacustrina in the younger beds).

There are hundreds of fossil bones attributed to the Bannockburn crake, which has given us much detail about the species. The Bannockburn crake was completely flightless, as evidenced by its small wings, and lived along the shores of the massive palaeo-lake Manuherikia. The species also exhibited a small degree of sexual dimorphism; males were between 1.15 to 1.25 times larger than their female counterparts, with some overlap between the sexes.

Despite the abundance of bones, the phylogenetic relationships of the Bannockburn crake are currently poorly understood. The fossils share some superficial similarities with weka, Chatham Island rail, and snipe-rail, but these may be more reflective of adaptations to flightlessness rather than a close relationship.

Regardless of this uncertainty, the Bannockburn crake is considered highly unlikely to be directly related to any of New Zealand’s living rails. Flightless rails are very vulnerable to extinction, and both molecular and fossil evidence show that flightlessness has arisen multiple times independently in New Zealand from different waves of colonising rail species; usually after the previous flightless inhabitants had already gone extinct.

The genus name is a combination of the Latin word ‘prisca’, meaning ancient, and weka, the common name for the extant Gallirallus australis. The name refers to the similar morphology that the Bannockburn crake shares with this living species. The species name is a combination of the Latin words ‘parvus’ (small) and ‘ales’ (winged), referring to this species’ flightless status.

References

Mather, E.K.; Tennyson, A.J.D.; Scofield, R.P.; De Pietri, V.L.; Hand, S.J.; Archer, M.; Handley, W.D. & Worthy, T.H. 2019. Flightless rails (Aves: Rallidae) from the early Miocene St Bathans Fauna, Otago, New Zealand. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 17: 423–449.

Recommended citation

Mather, E.K.. 2022. Bannockburn crake. In Miskelly, C.M. (ed.) New Zealand Birds Online. www.nzbirdsonline.org.nz