The Huahine Swamphen was a species of bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

 in the Rallidae

Rallidae

The rails, or Rallidae, are a large cosmopolitan family of small to medium-sized birds. The family exhibits considerable diversity and the family also includes the crakes, coots, and gallinules...

 family. It was a small swamphen

Porphyrio

Porphyrio is the swamphen genus of birds in the rail family. It includes some smaller species which are usually called "purple gallinules", and which are sometimes separated as genus Porphyrula or united with the gallinules proper in Gallinula. There are two living species of swamphen, the...

 endemic to Huahine

Huahine

Huahine is an island located among the Society Islands, in French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. It is part of the Leeward Islands group . The island has a population of about 6,000.-Geography:...

 in the Society Islands

Society Islands

The Society Islands are a group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean. They are politically part of French Polynesia. The archipelago is generally believed to have been named by Captain James Cook in honor of the Royal Society, the sponsor of the first British scientific survey of the islands;...

 of French Polynesia

French Polynesia

French Polynesia is an overseas country of the French Republic . It is made up of several groups of Polynesian islands, the most famous island being Tahiti in the Society Islands group, which is also the most populous island and the seat of the capital of the territory...

. It is known only from subfossil remains found at the Fa'ahia

Fa'ahia

Fa'ahia is an early Polynesian occupation site in the north of the island of Huahine, in the Society Islands, French Polynesia. With the neighbouring Vaito'otia site it dates to between 700 CE and 1200 CE. Because much of the site is waterlogged, artefacts made of organic materials have been well...

 archaeological site

Archaeological site

An archaeological site is a place in which evidence of past activity is preserved , and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and represents a part of the archaeological record.Beyond this, the definition and geographical extent of a 'site' can vary widely,...

 on the island. Fa'ahia is an early Polynesia

Polynesia

Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...

n occupation site with radiocarbon dates ranging from 700 CE

Common Era

Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...

to 1200 CE. The swamphen is only one of a suite of birds found at the site which became extinct either locally or globally following human occupation of the island.

Etymology

The species was named after Brian K. McNab to recognise his research on the evolution and ecology of flightless birds, especially rails, on oceanic islands.