The species was discovered by Spanish zoologist Fermín Zanón Cervera in March 1927 in the Zapata Swamp near Santo Tomás, in the southern Matanzas Province of Cuba.

Due to ongoing habitat loss in its limited range, its small population size, and predation by introduced mammals and catfish, the Zapata rail is evaluated as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

[4] Barbour had been accompanied by the Spaniard on his previous visits to Cuba, and on hearing of the strange birds to be found in the Zapata area, he sent Cervera on a series of trips into the region.

[15] The favoured habitat of the Zapata rail is flooded vegetation, 1.5–2.0 m (60–80 in) tall, consisting of tangled, bush-covered swamp and low trees, and preferably near higher ground.

Typical plants of the swamp are wax myrtle, the willow Salix longipes, the sawgrass Cladium jamaicensis, and the narrow leaf cattail.

[12] The species was once more widespread, with fossil bones found at Havana,[12] Pinar del Río and the Isla de la Juventud.

He considered that conditions similar to those found today may once have extended over the large submerged area now represented by the shallow banks, with scattered mangrove keys, which stretch towards the Isla de la Juventud and perhaps eastward along the southern Cuban coast.

[4] The birds fossilized at Isla de la Juventud are smaller than the single extant specimen, but the paucity of available material makes it impossible to establish whether the populations were genuinely different.

[12] American ornithologist James Bond found a nest containing three white eggs 60 cm (2 ft) above water level in sawgrass, but little else is known of the breeding biology.

[16] Island species of rails are particularly vulnerable to population loss since they frequently and rapidly evolve to become flightless or very weak fliers,[21] and are very susceptible to introduced predators.

The few records in subsequent years suggest that numbers remain low,[9] although after no official sightings for two decades, a 1998 survey found the birds at two new locations in the Zapata Swamp.

Surveys have recently been conducted throughout the species' range and proposed conservation measures include the control of dry season burning.

Rising sea levels due to global warming could contaminate the wetland with saltwater, damaging the plants and fauna, and by 2100 the area of Ciénaga de Zapata would be reduced by one-fifth.