Yellow-breasted crake


The yellow-breasted crake is a species of bird in the family Rallidae. It was formerly sometimes placed in the obsolete genus Poliolimnas or united with the Ocellated crake in Micropygia, and is now occasionally separated in a monotypic genus Hapalocrex. Phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial DNA revealed that it is not a part of Porzana proper, and instead belongs within the Coturnicops–Laterallus clade. While its precise relationships are still insufficiently resolved, it is not closely related to Micropygia, and Stervander et al. suggested that it should be referred to as Laterallus flaviventer pending further data.
It is found in most of Central and South America, as well as the Greater Antilles. Its natural habitat is swamps and marshes. This small rail has yellow legs, buff underparts, black barring on the flanks and a dark-streaked back, and a black crown.

Taxonomy

The yellow-breasted crake was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1781 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Rallus flaviventer in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The yellow-breasted crake is now placed in the genus Porzana that was erected by the French ornithologist Louis-Pierre Vieillot in 1816. The generic name is the Venetian word for the small crakes. The specific epithet combines the Latin flavus meaning "yellow" with venter meaning "belly".
The yellow-breasted crake is sometimes placed in the monotypic genus Hapalocrex.
Five subspecies are recognised: