The Water Rail descends from transatlantic migratory birds

The Water Rail is a bird species of the Rallidae family described for the first time by Carl von Linné in 1758 in Systema Naturae. Although the Rallus genus developed in the New World, this Old World species seems to come from ancestors that crossed the Atlantic. Genetic analyses further indicate that it is most closely related to the Gallirallus rails of the Pacific.