The Laysan rail or Laysan crake (Zapornia palmeri) was a flightless bird endemic to the Northwest Hawaiian Island of Laysan.
This small island was and still is an important seabird colony, and sustained a number of endemic species, including the rail.
It was a small bird 15-centimetre (5.9 in) from beak tip to tail tip. The bill, measuring 1.8 centimeters (0.71 in), was strong and straight, and the legs were also well-developed.
Tail and wings had been reduced in the course of its evolution to lengths of merely 2.5 centimeters (0.98 in) and 5.4 centimeters (2.1 in), respectively.
It was endemic to Laysan … although an introduced population was present on Midway Atoll until 1944.
Laysan is considered one of the most important seabird colonies in the United States. The extinction of this species is particularly unfortunate as it could have easily been avoided.
It was an opportunist that fed mainly on invertebrates such as moths, blowflies, and their larvae; plant leaves, seeds, and eggs and carcasses of seabirds were eaten when they were available.
It was an aggressive bird that would fight off other species, particularly the Laysan finch: the latter is very adept at breaking open seabird's eggs to consume the contents, while the rail was much less so.
Consequently, rails would linger around in the seabird colony, be on the lookout for finches which had just cracked open an egg, chase these away, and consume the egg's contents.
On Midway, the rails were seen to steal food from domestic chicken.
Although it was flightless, it would use its wings to assist in keeping balance when running quickly and jumping; this way, they were able to make jumps of somewhat less than 1 meter (3.3 ft).
They were nimble and restless, retreating to the tussocks to avoid predators, but chiefly to escape the mid-day heat; if they felt threatened, they often hid in the burrows of petrels.
Laysan rails had no natural enemies apart from occasional predation by frigatebirds; all reports remarked upon its fearlessness, and if an observer stood still, rails would approach and even climb over him to search for scraps of food.
The species was somewhat territorial, more so during the breeding season. The clutch consisted of 3 or less frequently two eggs (as opposed to some 5–10 for related continental rails).
The rail was initially threatened when domestic rabbits were introduced to Laysan. With no predators to control their numbers the rabbits soon ate the entire vegetation cover on the island.
This turned the island into a barren dust bowl, sending the Laysan millerbird and the Laysan honeycreeper (both subspecies endemic to the island) to extinction.
In the 1900s, when destruction of the vegetation by the rabbits had only just started, the rail's population was around 2000 mature birds and at carrying capacity; it remained so until at least the early 1910s, but declined thereafter.
In 1923, only two birds could be found on Laysan, and of eight that were on that occasion brought from Midway, at least two died almost immediately from lack of food and shelter.
The species is believed to have become extinct on Laysan during 1923, probably mainly because no habitat for nesting was left in sufficient quantity to maintain the population.
The last rail was seen on Eastern Island in Midway in June 1944.
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