The black rail (Laterallus jamaicensis) is a mouse-sized member of the rail family Rallidae that occurs in both North and South America. Taxonomy The black rail was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the rails in the genus Rallus and coined the binomial name Rallus jamaicensis. Gmelin based his description on the "Least water hen" that had been described and illustrated in 1760 by the English naturalist George Edwards in his Gleanings of Natural History. Edwards had obtained a preserved specimen that had been brought to London from Jamaica by Patrick Browne. Browne had briefly mentioned the rail in his book "The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica". The black rail is now placed with 12 other small rails and crakes in the genus Laterallus that was introduced in 1855 by George Robert Gray. The genus name is a portmanteau of Rallus lateralis, a synonym of the binomial name for the rufous-sided crake, the type species of the genus. The specific epithet jamaicensis is from "Jamaica", the type locality. There are five recognized subspecies: California rail, L. j. coturniculus (Ridgway, 1874) – found in both fresh and salt water marshes of California and Arizona, and is a resident species. The California rail can be distinguished from other subspecies by its shorter bill, and brown crown and upper back. The California Fish and Game Commission listed L. j. coturniculus as Threatened in 1971 due to loss of wetland habitat. Eastern black rail, L. j. jamaicensis (Gmelin, JF, 1789) – found in eastern North America, the Caribbean, and Central America. Nicknamed the "feathered mouse", the subspecies is partially migratory, breeding in the United States and wintering further south. The US Fish and Wildlife Service declared L. j. jamaicensis a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in October 2020. The eastern black rail can be differentiated from other subspecies by its gray crown and light brown nape. L. j. murivagans (Riley, 1916) – found on the coast of Peru. This subspecies is over all paler, with white bars in the undertail coverts, distinguishing it from other subspecies. There is little information available on this subspecies. L. j. salinasi (Philippi, 1857) – found in Argentina and Chile, and is the southernmost subspecies. On average, this subspecies is larger than the other subspecies.