Hawkins's rail

Hawkins's rail Temporal range: Holocene PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Skeleton from the collection of Auckland Museum
Conservation status
Extinct (1895)  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Extinct (1895) (NZ TCS)[2]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Gruiformes
Family:	Rallidae
Genus:	†Diaphorapteryx Forbes, 1892
Species:	†D. hawkinsi
Binomial name
†Diaphorapteryx hawkinsi (Forbes, 1892)

Hawkins's rail (Diaphorapteryx hawkinsi), also called the giant Chatham Island rail or in Moriori as mehonui,^[3] 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.