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Duck Duck Is The Common Name For Numerous Species in The Waterfowl
Duck Duck Is The Common Name For Numerous Species in The Waterfowl
Scientific classification
Contents Domain: Eukaryota
Etymology Kingdom: Animalia
Morphology Phylum: Chordata
Behaviour Class: Aves
Feeding
Order: Anseriformes
Breeding
Communication Superfamily: Anatoidea
Distribution and habitat Family: Anatidae
Predators
Subfamilies
Relationship with humans
Domestication See text
Hunting
Cultural references
See also
References
External links
Etymology
The word duck comes from Old English *dūce "diver", a derivative of the verb *dūcan "to duck, bend down
low as if to get under something, or dive", because of the way many species in the dabbling duck group feed
by upending; compare with Dutch duiken and German tauchen "to dive".
This word replaced Old English ened/ænid "duck", possibly to avoid confusion with other Old English words,
like ende "end" with similar forms. Other Germanic languages still have similar words for "duck", for
example, Dutch eend "duck", German Ente "duck" and Norwegian and "duck". The word ened/ænid was
inherited from Proto-Indo-
European; compare: Latin
anas "duck", Lithuanian
ántis "duck", Ancient Greek
nēssa/nētta (νῆσσα, νῆττα)
"duck", and Sanskrit ātí
"water bird", among others.
Morphology
The overall body plan of ducks is elongated and broad, and the ducks
are also relatively long-necked, albeit not as long-necked as the geese
and swans. The body shape of diving ducks varies somewhat from
this in being more rounded. The bill is usually broad and contains
serrated pectens, which are particularly well defined in the filter-
feeding species. In the case of some fishing species the bill is long and
strongly serrated. The scaled legs are strong and well developed, and
generally set far back on the body, more so in the highly aquatic
species. The wings are very strong and are generally short and
Male Mandarin duck
pointed, and the flight of ducks requires fast continuous strokes,
requiring in turn strong wing muscles. Three species of steamer duck
are almost flightless, however. Many species of duck are temporarily
flightless while moulting; they seek out protected habitat with good food supplies during this period. This
moult typically precedes migration.
The drakes of northern species often have extravagant plumage, but that is moulted in summer to give a more
female-like appearance, the "eclipse" plumage. Southern resident species typically show less sexual
dimorphism, although there are exceptions such as the paradise shelduck of New Zealand, which is both
strikingly sexually dimorphic and in which the female's plumage is brighter than that of the male. The plumage
of juvenile birds generally resembles that of the female. Over the course of evolution, female ducks have
evolved to have a corkscrew shaped vagina to prevent rape.
Behaviour
Feeding
Ducks eat a variety of food sources such as grasses, aquatic plants, fish, insects, small amphibians, worms, and
small molluscs.
Dabbling ducks feed on the surface of water or on land, or as deep as
they can reach by up-ending without completely submerging.[5]
Along the edge of the beak, there is a comb-like structure called a
pecten. This strains the water squirting from the side of the beak and
traps any food. The pecten is also used to preen feathers and to hold
slippery food items.
Pecten along the beak
Diving ducks and sea ducks forage deep underwater. To be able to
submerge more easily, the diving ducks are heavier than dabbling
ducks, and therefore have more difficulty taking off to fly.
The others have the characteristic wide flat beak adapted to dredging-
type jobs such as pulling up waterweed, pulling worms and small
molluscs out of mud, searching for insect larvae, and bulk jobs such Play media
as dredging out, holding, turning head first, and swallowing a Mallard duckling preening
squirming frog. To avoid injury when digging into sediment it has no
cere, but the nostrils come out through hard horn.
The Guardian (British newspaper) published an article advising that ducks should not be fed with bread
because it damages the health of the ducks and pollutes waterways.[6]
Breeding
Communication
Female mallard ducks (as well as several other species in the genus Anas, such as the American and Pacific
black ducks) make the classic "quack" sound while males make a similar but raspier sound that is sometimes
written as "breeeeze",[10] but, despite widespread misconceptions, most species of duck do not "quack".[11] In
general, ducks make a wide range of calls, ranging from whistles, cooing, yodels and grunts. For example, the
scaup – which are diving ducks – make a noise like "scaup" (hence their name). Calls may be loud displaying
calls or quieter contact calls.
A common urban legend claims that duck quacks do not echo; however, this has been proven to be false. This
myth was first debunked by the Acoustics Research Centre at the University of Salford in 2003 as part of the
British Association's Festival of Science.[12] It was also debunked in one of the earlier episodes of the popular
Discovery Channel television show MythBusters.[13]
Some duck species, mainly those breeding in the temperate and Arctic
Northern Hemisphere, are migratory; those in the tropics, however, Flying steamer ducks in Ushuaia,
are generally not. Some ducks, particularly in Australia where rainfall Argentina
is patchy and erratic, are nomadic, seeking out the temporary lakes
and pools that form after localised heavy rain.[14]
Predators
Adult ducks are fast fliers, but may be caught on the water by large
aquatic predators including big fish such as the North American
muskie and the European pike. In flight, ducks are safe from all but a
few predators such as humans and the peregrine falcon, which
regularly uses its speed and strength to catch ducks.
Domestication
Ducks have many economic uses, being farmed for their meat, eggs, and feathers (particularly their down).
Approximately 3 billion ducks are slaughtered each year for meat worldwide.[15] They are also kept and bred
by aviculturists and often displayed in zoos. Almost all the varieties of domestic ducks are descended from the
mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), apart from the Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata).[16][17] The call duck is
another example of a domestic duck breed. Its name comes from its original use established by hunters, as a
decoy to attract wild mallards from the sky, into traps set for them on the ground. The call duck is the world's
smallest domestic duck breed, as it weighs less than 1 kg (2.2 lb).[18]
Hunting
Cultural references
In 2002, psychologist Richard Wiseman and colleagues at the American Pekin ducks, a common
University of Hertfordshire, UK, finished a year-long LaughLab breed of domestic ducks
experiment, concluding that of all animals, ducks attract the most
humor and silliness; he said, "If you're going to tell a joke involving
an animal, make it a duck."[21] The word "duck" may have become an inherently funny word in many
languages, possibly because ducks are seen as silly in their looks or behavior. Of the many ducks in fiction,
many are cartoon characters, such as Walt Disney's Donald Duck, and Warner Bros.' Daffy Duck. Howard the
Duck started as a comic book character in 1973 and was made into a movie in 1986.
The 1992 Disney film The Mighty Ducks, starring Emilio Estevez, chose the duck as the mascot for the
fictional youth hockey team who are protagonists of the movie, based on the duck being described as a fierce
fighter. This led to the duck becoming the nickname and mascot for the eventual National Hockey League
professional team Anaheim Ducks. The duck is also the nickname of the University of Oregon sports teams as
well as the Long Island Ducks minor league baseball team.
See also
Duckwalk
Duck crossing
Duck face
Duck test
List of duck breeds
List of fictional ducks
Rubber duck
United Poultry Concerns
Donald Duck
References
1. "Duckling" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/duckling). The American Heritage Dictionary
of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company. 2006. Retrieved
2015-05-22.
2. "Duckling" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/duckling). Kernerman English Multilingual
Dictionary (Beta Version). K. Dictionaries Ltd. 2000–2006. Retrieved 2015-05-22.
3. Dohner, Janet Vorwald (2001). The Encyclopedia of Historic and Endangered Livestock and
Poultry Breeds (https://books.google.com/books?id=WJCTL_mC5w4C&q=male+duck+is+calle
d+a+drake+and+the+female+is+called+a+duck&pg=PA457). Yale University Press. ISBN 978-
0300138139.
4. Visca, Curt; Visca, Kelley (2003). How to Draw Cartoon Birds (https://books.google.com/book
s?id=VqSquCLNrZcC&q=male+duck+is+called+a+drake+and+the+female+is+called+a+duck
+%28or+hen%29&pg=PA16). The Rosen Publishing Group. ISBN 9780823961566.
5. Ogden, Evans. "Dabbling Ducks" (https://www.sfu.ca/biology/wildberg/species/dabbducks.htm
l). CWE. Retrieved 2006-11-02.
6. Karl Mathiesen (16 March 2015). "Don't feed the ducks bread, say conservationists" (https://ww
w.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/16/dont-feed-the-ducks-bread-say-conservationists).
The Guardian. Retrieved 13 November 2016.
7. Rohwer, Frank C.; Anderson, Michael G. (1988). "Female-Biased Philopatry, Monogamy, and
the Timing of Pair Formation in Migratory Waterfowl". Current Ornithology. pp. 187–221.
doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-6787-5_4 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2F978-1-4615-6787-5_4).
ISBN 978-1-4615-6789-9.
8. Cyndi M. Smith, Fred Cooke, Gregory J. Robertson, R. Ian Goudie, and W. Sean Boyd (2000)
LONG-TERM PAIR BONDS IN HARLEQUIN DUCKS. The Condor: February 2000, Vol. 102,
No. 1, pp. 201-205.
9. "If You Find An Orphaned Duckling - Wildlife Rehabber" (https://wildliferehabber.com/content/if-
you-find-duckling). wildliferehabber.com.
10. Carver, Heather (2011). The Duck Bible (https://books.google.com/books?id=VGofAwAAQBAJ
&q=mallard+sound+deep+and+raspy&pg=PA39). Lulu.com. ISBN 9780557901562.
11. Titlow, Budd (2013-09-03). Bird Brains: Inside the Strange Minds of Our Fine Feathered
Friends (https://books.google.com/books?id=fXJBBAAAQBAJ&q=Females+of+most+dabbling
+ducks+make+the+classic+%22quack%22+sound+but+most+ducks+don%27t+quack&pg=PA
123). Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780762797707.
12. Amos, Jonathan (2003-09-08). "Sound science is quackers" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/scienc
e/nature/3086890.stm). BBC News. Retrieved 2006-11-02.
13. "Mythbusters Episode 8" (http://mythbustersresults.com/episode8). 12 December 2003.
14. "Pacific Black Duck" (http://www.wiresnr.org/pacificblackduck.html). www.wiresnr.org.
Retrieved 2018-04-27.
15. "FAOSTAT" (http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QL). www.fao.org. Retrieved 2019-10-25.
16. "Anas platyrhynchos, Domestic Duck; DigiMorph Staff - The University of Texas at Austin" (htt
p://digimorph.org/specimens/anas_platyrhynchos/skull/). Digimorph.org. Retrieved 2012-12-23.
17. Sy Montgomery. "Mallard; Encyclopædia Britannica" (http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-36030
2/mallard). Britannica.com. Retrieved 2012-12-23.
18. Glenday, Craig (2014). Guinness World Records (https://archive.org/details/guinnessworldrec0
000unse_r3e7/page/135). pp. 135 (https://archive.org/details/guinnessworldrec0000unse_r3e7/
page/135). ISBN 978-1-908843-15-9.
19. Livingston, A. D. (1998-01-01). Guide to Edible Plants and Animals (https://books.google.com/b
ooks?id=NViSMffyaSgC&q=%C2%A0%C2%A0In+many+areas,+wild+ducks+of+various+spec
ies+are+hunted+for+food+or+sport). Wordsworth Editions, Limited. ISBN 9781853263774.
20. "Study plan for waterfowl injury assessment: Determining PCB concentrations in Hudson river
resident waterfowl" (https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/fish_marine_pdf/wfp09a.pdf) (PDF). New
York State Department of Environmental Conservation. US Department of Commerce.
December 2008. p. 3. Retrieved 2 July 2019.
21. Young, Emma. "World's funniest joke revealed" (https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2876-w
orlds-funniest-joke-revealed/). New Scientist. Retrieved 7 January 2019.
External links
Media related to the Anatidae (http://ibc.lynxeds.com/family/ducks-geese-swans-anatidae) on
the Internet Bird Collection
list of books (https://web.archive.org/web/20060613210555/http://seaducks.org/subjects/MIGRA
TION%20AND%20FLIGHT.htm) (useful looking abstracts)
Ducks on postage stamps (http://www.stampsbook.org/subject/Duck.html)
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