Aztec Rail, also known as Mexican Rail, occupies highland freshwater marshes in central Mexico. Until recently, this rail was classified as a subspecies of King Rail (R. elegans) of eastern North America, but phylogenetic analyses revealed that Aztec Rail is more closely related to Ridgway's Rail (R. obsoletus), of the lowlands of southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, than it is to King Rail. The biology of Aztec Rail presumably is similar to that of King, Ridgway's, and other related species, but Aztec Rail has received little attention to date from field biologists