Tahiti rail Tahiti rail The Tahiti rail, Tahitian red-billed rail, or Pacific red-billed rail ("Gallirallus pacificus") is an extinct species of rail that lived on Tahiti. It was first recorded during James Cook's second voyage around the world (1772–1775), on which it was illustrated by Georg Forster and described by Johann Reinhold Forster. No specimens have been preserved. As well as the documentation by the Forsters, there have been claims that the bird also existed on the nearby island of Mehetia. The Tahiti rail appears to have been closely related to, and perhaps derived from, the buff-banded rail, and has also been
Tahiti Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to observe the transit of Venus across the sun, a phenomenon that would be visible from Tahiti on 3 June 1769. He arrived in Tahiti's Matavai Bay, commanding on 12 April 1769. On 14 April, Cook met with Tutaha and Tepau. On 15 April, Cook picked the site for a fortified camp at Point Venus along with Banks, Parkinson, Daniel Solander, to protect Charles Green's observatory. The length of stay enabled them to undertake for the first time real ethnographic and scientific observations of the island. Assisted by the botanist Joseph Banks, and by the