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Russet-crowned crake

species of bird

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 5, 2025
Entity authorityQ1263893 ↗
Source-derived summary

The russet-crowned crake (Rufirallus viridis) is a species of bird in subfamily Rallinae of family Rallidae, the rails, gallinules, and coots. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, the Guianas, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela.

Taxonomy

The russet-crowned crake was formally described in 1776 by the German zoologist Philipp Statius Müller under the binomial name Rallus viridis. Müller based his account on a plate of the "Râle de Cayenne" that had been published to accompany the Comte de Buffon's Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The russet-crowned crake is now placed in the genus Rufirallus that was introduced in 1856 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte. The genus name combines the Latin rufus meaning "rufous" with the genus Rallus that had been introduced by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 for the rails. The specific epithet viridis is Latin meaning "green".

Two subspecies are recognised:

R. v. brunnescens (Todd, 1932) – central north Colombia

R. v. viridis (Müller, PLS, 1776) – east Colombia, south Venezuela through the Guianas and Amazonian Brazil to east Peru and north Bolivia

Description

The russet-crowned crake is 16 to 18 cm (6.3 to 7.1 in) long.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Russet-crowned crake” is species of bird. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Russet-crowned, crake and species, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical orientation to terminology and classification, particularly when read beside dated observations, specimens or technical literature. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1776, 1856, 1758, 1932—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Russet-crowned, crake and species is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “species of bird” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 5, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1263893. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1776, 1856, 1758 and 1932.

Critical limits

A general summary may omit uncertainty, sample limits or methodological disagreement that is explicit in the technical record. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Check terminology, classification and the date of the cited evidence. Scientific names and technical consensus can change while older records retain historical value.

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  • Current terminology
  • Classification context
  • Finding cited technical literature
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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Russet-crowned crake”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Russet-crowned crake primary sources, Russet-crowned crake archive and Russet-crowned research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  2. Which observation, specimen, dataset or publication supports the account?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Russet-crowned crake” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.