Laterallus is a genus of birds in the rail family Rallidae. These small, relatively short-billed terrestrial rails are found among dense vegetation near water in the Neotropics, although a single species, the black rail, also occurs in the United States.
The genus was erected by the English zoologist George Robert Gray in 1855 with the rufous-sided crake (Laterallus melanophaius) as the type species.[1] The genus name is a portmanteau of Rallus lateralis, a synonym of the binomial name for the rufous-sided crake.[2] The authors of a molecular genetic study published in 2019 proposed that the yellow-breasted crake, the dot-winged crake, and the flightless Inaccessible Island rail should be moved to this genus.[3]