Tahiti rail plantations. Its diet appears to have consisted mainly of insects and occasionally copra (coconut meat). The extinction of the Tahiti rail was probably due to predation by humans and introduced cats and rats. It appears to have become extinct some time after 1844 on Tahiti, and perhaps as late as the 1930s on Mehetia. The Tahiti rail was found on the South Pacific island of Tahiti (part of the Society Islands archipelago) by naturalists who were part of the British explorer James Cook's second voyage around the world (1772–1775). The bird was illustrated by Georg Forster, who accompanied his father,
Tahiti took over command. Gayangos set sail for Peru on 27 Jan, leaving the two friars, Father Geronimo Clota and Father Narciso Gonzalez, and Maximo Rodriguez and Francisco Perez, in charge of the Spanish mission. However, the Spanish mission on Tahiti was abandoned on 12 November 1775, after "Aguila"s third voyage to Tahiti, when the Fathers begged its commander, Don Cayetano de Langara, to take them back to Lima. Some maps still bear the name "Isla de Amat" for Tahiti, named after Viceroy Amat who ordered the expedition. A most notable result of these voyages was the journal by a marine