Olson and Rauzon • WAKE ISLAND RAIL 
669 
stones at low tide” and considered that because 
the channel separating Wake and Peale islands 
was much deeper, the populations of those islands 
must "therefore represent independent colonies.” 
Wake Island would have been completely 
inundated during the last interglacial maximum 
rise in sea level during Marine Isotope Stage 
(MIS) 5e (Kirchman 2009), which was at least 5- 
6 m higher than present, and did not subside to, 
and remain at or below, present levels until 
119.000 years ago (Hearty et al. 2007). Other taxa 
of flightless rails on low islands have been 
postulated as being no older than the last 
interglacial period, including the extinct Porzanct 
palmeri of Laysan Island (Olson 1999b. Slikas et 
al. 2002) and all of the endemic vertebrates of 
Aldabra Island in the Indian Ocean (Taylor et al. 
1979, Olson et al. 2006), including the flightless 
rail Dryolimnas cuvieri atdabranus. Evidence 
now suggests that sea levels at the end of the last 
interglacial (MIS 5a) rose considerably higher 
than previously thought (Vacher and Hearty 
1989), and the latest evidence indicates I m 
above present levels at 81,000 yeurs ago (Dorale 
et al. 2010). That would probably have been 
sufficient to inundate Wake Island during major 
storms. Thus, the period available for the 
colonization and evolution of G. wakensis may 
have been <80,000 years. That is not unreason¬ 
able considering that the large, endemic flightless 
rail Ralius recessus of Bermuda is known with 
certainty to have evolved well after that time, 
during the last glacial episode (Olson and Wingate 
2001, Hearty et al. 2004, Olson and Hearty 2010). 
Kirchman's (2009) conclusions would therefore 
require the volant ancestor of G. wakensis to 
become extinct in the last 80,000 years, which 
requires explanation. 
MORPHOLOGY 
Adult Plumage.— Rothschild's (1903:78) origi¬ 
nal description was: "Upper surface dark ashy 
brown, fading to an earthy brown: ear-coverts and 
lores dark brown, a pale grey superciliary line; 
chin and upper throat whitish, neck grey, rest of 
underside ashy brown, on the breast with one. on 
the abdomen and Hanks with two or three narrow 
white bars; tail uniform brown: quills and under 
wing-coverts brown, barred with white....Wings 
and tail very soft, so as to suggest little power of 
flight." Hartert (1927:22) augmented this: "There 
are a number of narrow' white bars, both on the 
sides of and across the jugulum, and the sides of 
breast and abdomen, also on the under tail coverts. 
There is a pale rufous band across the chest, 
indistinct in some specimens. Chin and upper 
throat white, middle of abdomen whitish.” The 
undertail coverts are nearly always lacking or very 
worn in the Tanager series. However, the under¬ 
tail coverts are distinctly barred with white as 
noted by Hartert (1927) in a specimen in fresh 
plumage (BBM 6120). 
The single specimen taken in November (BBM 
6120, Frontispiece) and a bird taken on 12 June 
are in fresh plumage except for the worn 
secondaries and tertials of the latter, in which 
the primaries have been molted. The entire 
dorsum is of a noticeably darker and clearer gray, 
approaching blackish, than in the Tanager series, 
which had evidently undergone weeks more of 
fading and abrasion so that they are browner and 
more scaly in appearance above (Frontispiece). 
Wetmore (in Olson 1996:105) considered that 
"a light brown band faintly indicated across the 
breast” was "found in female only.” In fact, a 
trace of a breast band is found in almost all 
specimens, although in some males this may be 
only a faintly hinted tawny wash. The breast band 
of females varies from indistinct to a strong 
ochraceous color and, in the most extreme 
individuals, is a clear, light chestnut (Frontis¬ 
piece). 
There is a considerable amount of leucism in 
the USNM series showing as a white spot on the 
upper breast between the whitish throat and the 
breast band (8 males, I female). This was but a 
single feather in an additional male and two 
females, and in one male there was a single white 
feather in the upper mantle. The barring of the 
remiges is not just white as indicated by Roths¬ 
child (1903) but is w'hite on the outer primaries 
and light chestnut on the remaining remiges 
(Frontispiece), similar to the condition in G. 
philippensis. 
Adult Gallirallus wakensis have been depicted 
in an excellent ink drawing by D. Reid-Henry 
(Fig, 3) in Greenway (1958). a rather fanciful, 
even lurid, painting in Fuller (1987:75, 2001:128- 
129). and color illustrations in Ripley (1977: plate 
II). Taylor (1996, 1998), and Livezey (2003:13). 
The last was based on the unsexed BMNH 
specimen, probably a female. W'hich was likely 
the basis for all of the preceding illustrations 
except that in Ripley (19 77), which was based on 
USNM 301104 , a male with no breast band 
(USNM registrar’s loan records). 
