Porphyrio

Porphyrio is the swamphen genus of birds in the rail family. It includes some smaller species which are usually called "purple gallinules", and which are sometimes separated as genus Porphyrula or united with the gallinules proper (or "moorhens") in Gallinula. There are two living species of swamphen, the majority of the group having become extinct in the Holocene. As opposed to the Old World and especially Australasian swamphens, the four Porphyrio gallinules are distributed in the warmer regions of Africa and the Americas, barely reaching into Asia and Europe.