Five new extinct species of rails (Aves: Gruiformes: Rallidae) from the Macaronesian Islands (North Atlantic Ocean).

Five new species of recently extinct rails from two Macaronesian archipelagoes(Madeira and Azores) are described. All the species are smaller in size than their presumed ancestor, the European rail Rallusaquaticus . Two species inhabited the Madeira archipelago: (1) Ralluslowei n. sp., the stouter of the species described herein, was a flightless rail with a robust tarsometatarsusand reduced wings that lived on Madeira Island; (2) Rallusadolfocaesaris n. sp., a flightless and more gracilespecies than its Madeiran counterpart, inhabited Porto Santo. So far, six Azorean islands have been paleontologicallyexplored, and the remains of fossil rails have been found on all of them. Here we formally describe the best-preserved remains from three islands (Pico, Sao Miguel and Sao Jorge): (1) Rallusmontivagorum n. sp., a rail smaller than R. aquaticus with a somewhat reduced flying capability, inhabited Pico; (2) Ralluscarvaoensis n. sp., a small flightless rail with short and stout legs and a bill apparently more curved than in R. aquaticus , was restricted to Sao Miguel; (3) Rallusminutus n. sp., a very small (approaching Atlantisia rogersi in size) flightless rail with a shortened robust tarsometatarsus, lived in Sao Jorge. We note also the presence of rail fossils on three other Azorean islands (Terceira, Graciosa and Santa Maria). In addition, we describe an extraordinarily complete fossil of an unnamed Ralluspreserved in silica from the locality of Algar do Carvao on Terceira.