- Animals
- ›Chordates
- ›Vertebrates
- ›Birds
- ›Cranes, Rails, and Allies
- ›Rails, Gallinules, and Coots
- ›Gallirallus

On eBird ↗
Dieffenbach's Rail
Live sightings near you, the range map, bar charts of when it is seen, and Macaulay Library photos and recordings.
Dieffenbach's Rail
Gallirallus dieffenbachii
Dieffenbach's rail (Gallirallus dieffenbachii) was a species of bird from the family Rallidae. It was endemic to the Chatham Islands and referred to as meriki, or mehoriki, by the indigenous Moriori. The only recorded living specimen of Dieffenbach's rail was captured in 1840 by Ernst Dieffenbach, who is commemorated in the scientific and common name of the species. It became extinct due to hunting and introduced predators, perhaps soon after 1840.
Listen
Looking for field recordings…
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Gallirallus dieffenbachii in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 390.