see text Edithornis Pareudiastes Moorhens—sometimes called marsh hens—are medium-sized water birds that are members of the rail family (Rallidae).

[2][3][4][5] The native hens differ visually by shorter, thicker and stubbier toes and bills, and longer tails that lack the white signal pattern of typical moorhens.

They are aggressively territorial during the breeding season, but are otherwise often found in sizeable flocks on the shallow vegetated lakes they prefer.

By the Pliocene, it was probably distributed worldwide: The ancient "Gallinula" disneyi (Late Oligocene—Early Miocene of Riversleigh, Australia) has been separated as genus Australlus.

For example, specimen QM F30696, a left distal tibiotarsus piece from the Oligo-Miocene boundary at Riversleigh, is similar to but differs in details from "G." disneyi.

[14] It may be that apart from climate change it was driven to extinction by the introduction of the dingo, which as opposed to the marsupial predators hunted during the day, but this would require a survival of mainland Gallinula mortierii to as late as about 1500 BC.

However, some limb bone proportions are also strikingly different, and in any case such a scenario would require a flightless bird to change but little during some 20 million years in an environment rich in predators.