Rallina is a genus of bird in the rail family, Rallidae. It contains four species found in forest and marshland in Asia and Australasia.[1] They are 18–34 cm long and mainly chestnut or brown, often with black and white markings.[2]
Four African species formerly usually placed in Rallina are now placed in the genus Rallicula; some taxonomic authorities continue to place them in Rallina, but as the pronounced sexual dimorphism of Rallicula shows, they are no true rails at all, but instead belong to the recently-separated (though outwardly similar) flufftail family Sarothruridae.
The genus contains the following four species:
A fifth Rallina species, the Great Nicobar crake, was proposed but not formally described in 2012.[3] As of 2023, the supposed new species was only recorded twice, in 2011 and 2015; however, in 2021 populations of Red-legged and Slaty-legged crakes were discovered to inhabit Great Nicobar Island. It is thus more likely that the "Great Nicobar crake" is a hybrid between these two species, or even between a local Red-legged crake and a stray individual of the Andaman crake (being essentially intermediate in appearance between them).