African rail
These birds probe with their bill in mud or shallow water, also picking up food by sight. They mainly eat insects, crabs and other small aquatic animals.
Water rail
Parasites include the sucking lice "Nirmus cuspidiculus" and "Pediculus ralli", the tick "Ixodes frontalis", and the louse fly "Ornithomyia avicularia". The water rail can be infected by the avian influenza virus and the bacterium "Borrelia burgdorferi", carried by "Ixodes" ticks, which is also a human pathogen causing Lyme disease. Three lice, "Fulicoffula rallina", "Pseudomenopon scopulacorne" and "Rallicola cuspidatus" discovered on dead water rails in 2005 on the Faroe Islands were all species that had not been found on the archipelago previously. The parasitic flatworm "Ophthalmophagus nasciola" was found in one rail's nasal sinus, and at least three species of feather mite have been detected on the plumage. The louse "Philopterus ralli" and the nematode "Strongyloides avium" have been found on the closely related brown-cheeked rail "R. a. indicus".