Gallinula tenebrosa
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
The dusky moorhen (Gallinula tenebrosa) is a bird species in the rail family and is one of the eight extant species in the moorhen genus. It occurs in Australia, New Guinea, Borneo and Indonesia. It is often confused with the purple swamphen and the Eurasian coot due to similar appearance and overlapping distributions. They often live alongside birds in the same genus, such as the Tasmanian nativehen and the common moorhen.
John Gould described the dusky moorhen in 1846 from a skin collected along the Murray River in South Australia. Its species name is derived from the Latin tenebrosa "dark". Charles Lucien Bonaparte described Gallinula haematopus in 1856, but this is now a nomen nudum. Gregory Mathews described two subspecies that have been synonymized—magnirostris from Western Australia and subfrontata from New South Wales.
Three subspecies are recognised: subspecies frontata from southeastern Borneo, the Sunda Islands, Timor and western New Guinea, subspecies neumannii from northern New Guinea, and the nominate subspecies from Australia. Common names include dusky moorhen, black gallinule, black moorhen and waterhen.
The dusky moorhen is a medium...
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Royal National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 2 | Great Otway National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 3 | Phillip Island Nature Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 4 | Springbrook National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 5 | Blue Mountains National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 6 | Grampians National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 7 | Hattah-Kulkyne National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 8 | Noosa National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 9 | Booderee National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 10 | Kosciuszko National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 11 | Wilsons Promontory National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 12 | Lamington National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 13 | Daintree National Park | 🇦🇺 Australia |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Australia Zoo | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 2 | Taronga Zoo | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 3 | Cleland Wildlife Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 4 | Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 5 | Melbourne Zoo | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 6 | Gorge Wildlife Park | 🇦🇺 Australia | |
| 7 | Ipswich Nature Centre | 🇦🇺 Australia |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Dusky Moorhen sighting in Phillip Island Nature Park on a given day, based on 229 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 66th most-seen of the 149 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
March
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Dusky Moorhen in Phillip Island Nature Park on a given day, against about 10% in April to February, the lowest months.
Between noon and 3 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Dusky Moorhen sightings with a recorded time, and nearly all of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
3rd of 13
Of the 13 parks where we can rate Dusky Moorhen sightings, Phillip Island Nature Park ranks 3rd at about 10%. The best odds are in Royal National Park (Australia, about 40%) and Great Otway National Park (Australia, about 10%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Dusky Moorhen is recorded against all the birds logged in Phillip Island Nature Park (229 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
