The purple gallinule is a brightly colored marsh bird. It has blue and green feathers, long yellow legs, very long toes, and a red bill with a yellow tip. The purple gallinule breeds in southern Texas, Arkansas, and the Carolinas south to Florida and in Central and South America and the West Indies. It winters on the Gulf Coast.
Freshwater marshes with aquatic vegetation like lily pads and pickerelweed.
Purple gallinules eat a wide variety of foods including frogs, grasshoppers, dragonflies, spiders, and water plants. Porphyrula Female purple gallinules lay six to ten eggs in a nest of dead tree stems and leaves. The nest is usually placed on a floating tussock, in a clump of sawgrass or in a thicket. Both parents incubate the eggs and feed the chicks. One partner will bring the other partner incubating the eggs a leaf.