King rail
This rail forages in shallow water near cover and eats mainly aquatic insects and crustaceans. It forages by probing the mud while moving around in shallow water.
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".