The western swamphen (Porphyrio porphyrio) is a species of swamphen in the rail family Rallidae, one of the six species of purple swamphen. This chicken-sized bird, with its large feet, bright plumage and red bill and frontal shield is easily recognisable in its native range. It used to be considered the nominate subspecies of the purple swamphen, but is now recognised as a separate species. The western swamphen is found in wetlands in Spain (where the largest population lives), Portugal, southeastern France, Italy (Sardinia and Sicily) and northwestern Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia).
Taxonomy
The western swamphen was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the coots in the genus Fulica and coined the binomial name Fulica porphyrio. The specific epithet porphyrio is Latin for a swamphen. The word is from Ancient Greek πορφυριον (porphurion) meaning "swamphen" which in turn is from πορφυρα (porphura) meaning "purple". The species had been described in 1678 by the English ornithologist Francis Willughby under that Latin name Porphyrio and English name "purple water-hen". Linnaeas specified the type location as Asia, Africa but this has been restricted to the lands bordering the western Mediterranean. The western swamphen is now one of 12 species placed in the genus Porphyrio that was introduced in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson.
The western swamphen was formerly considered as the nominate subspecies in the purple swamphen species complex. The complex was split into six species based primarily on a molecular phylogenetic studies published in 1997 and 2015. Following this revision, the species is now considered monotypic, with no subspecies recognised.
Behaviour
The species makes loud, quick, bleating and hooting calls which are hardly bird-like in tone. It is particularly noisy during the breeding season. Despite being clumsy in flight it can fly long distances, and is a good swimmer, especially for a bird without webbed feet.
Breeding
thumb|right|A pair in Portugal
thumb|Egg of western swamphen – [[MHNT]]
Western swamphens are generally seasonal breeders, correlating with peak rainfall in many places, or summer in more temperate climes.
Pairs nest in a large pad of interwoven reed flags, etc., on a mass of floating debris or amongst matted reeds slightly above water level in swamps, clumps of rushes in paddocks or long unkempt grass. Each bird can lay 3–6 speckled eggs, pale yellowish stone to reddish buff, blotched and spotted with reddish brown. The incubation period is 23–27 days, and is performed by both sexes. The precocious chicks are feathered with downy black feathers and able to leave the nest soon after hatching, but will often remain in the nest for a few days. Young chicks are fed by their parents (and group members) for between 10–14 days, after which they begin to feed themselves. As a result of reintroduction schemes and protection of both the species and its habitat, the western swamphen has since recovered. By the 1990s it was locally common, and by 2000 its range in the Iberian Peninsula was similar to its range in 1900. It was extirpated from Sicily in 1957, effectively restricting its Italian range to Sardinia where the population was 450–600 breeding pairs in 1999. Beginning in 2000, it was reintroduced to Sicily.
When protected, western swamphens are able to thrive in human-managed habitats,