Rails

Species in the rail family have a rather wide range of body and bill shapes. The true rails have a rather long, slender beak, often downward curving. The body of rails that live in marsh habitats is quite compressed laterally, a characteristic that gave rise to the saying, "skinny as a rail." Species that are commonly called rails generally live in reedy marshes, and are relatively large birds with a beak, legs, and toes that are long. Crakes are relatively small birds with stubby, chicken-like bills. Coots are duck-like, aquatic birds with lobed feet used for swimming and diving, and usually a stubby bill, although it can be massive in certain species. Gallinules or moorhens are coot-like in shape, but they have long toes that help with walking on floating aquatic vegetation.

Most species in the rail family have a subdued coloration of brown, black, and white. However, gallinules are often very colorful birds, some species being a bright, sometimes iridescent green, purple, or turquoise, usually with a red beak.

Rails eat many types of animal foods, including a wide range of invertebrates, and sometimes fish and amphibians. Most rails also eat many types of aquatic plants, and some species are exclusively plant eaters. Most species of rails build their nests as mounds of vegetation, in which they lay up to 12 eggs. Newly hatched rails are precocial, which means they are capable of leaving the nest almost as soon as they hatch, following their parents as they search for food.