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For other meanings, see Duck (disambiguation).

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Ducks
A female and male Mallard
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Anseriformes
Family:	Anatidae
Subfamilies
Dendrocygninae Oxyurinae Anatinae Merginae

Duck is the common name for a number of species in the Anatidae family of birds. The ducks are divided between several subfamilies listed in full in the Anatidae article. Ducks are mostly aquatic birds, mostly smaller than their relatives the swans and geese, and may be found in both fresh water and sea water.

Most ducks have a wide flat beak adapted for dredging. They exploit a variety of food sources such as grasses, aquatic plants, fish, insects, small amphibians, worms, and small molluscs. Diving ducks and sea ducks forage deep underwater; Dabbling ducks feed on the surface of water or on land. Dabbling ducks have in their beaks special plates called lamellae similar to a whale's baleen. These tiny rows of plates along the inside of the beak let them filter water out of the side of their beaks and keep food inside. To be able to submerge more easily, the diving ducks are heavier than dabbling ducks, and therefore have more difficulty taking off to fly. A few specialized species such as the Smew, Goosander, and the mergansers are adapted to catch large fish.

The males (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. Many species of ducks are temporarily flightless while moulting; they seek out protected habitat with good food supplies during this period. This moult typically precedes migration.

Some duck species, mainly those breeding in the temperate and arctic Northern Hemisphere, are migratory, but others, particularly in the tropics, are not. Some ducks, particularly in Australia where rainfall is patchy and erratic, are nomadic, seeking out the temporary lakes and pools that form after localised heavy rain.

Some people use "duck" specifically for adult females and "drake" for adult males, for the species described here; others use "hen" and "drake", respectively.

Ducks are sometimes confused with several types of unrelated water birds with similar forms, such as loons or divers, grebes, gallinules, and coots.

Predators

A worldwide group like the ducks has many predators. Ducklings are particularly vulnerable, since their inability to fly makes them easy prey not only for avian hunters but also large fish like pike, crocodilians and other aquatic hunters, including fish-eating birds such as herons. Nests may also be raided by land-based predators, and brooding females may sometimes be caught unaware on the nest by mammals (e.g. foxes) and large birds, including hawks and eagles).

Adult ducks are fast fliers, but may be caught on the water by large aquatic predators. This can occasionally include fish such as the muskie in North America or the pike in Europe. In flight, ducks are safe from all but a few predators, although the Peregrine Falcon regularly uses its speed and strength to catch ducks.

Etymology

The word duck (from Anglo-Saxon dūce), meaning the bird, came from the verb "to duck" (from Anglo-Saxon supposed *dūcan) meaning "to bend down low as if to get under something", because of the way many species in the dabbling duck group feed by upending (compare the Dutch word duiken = "to dive").

This happened because the older Old English word for "duck" came to be pronounced the same as the word for "end": other Germanic languages still have similar words for "duck" and "end": for example, Dutch eend = "duck", eind = "end"; also among Indo-European languages compare Latin anas (stem anat-) = "duck", Sanskrit anta (masc.) = "end", Lithuanian antis = "duck".

Hunting and Domestication

In many areas, wild ducks of various species (including ducks farmed and released into the wild) are hunted for food or sport, by shooting, or formerly by decoys. From this came the expression "a sitting duck", which means "an easy target".

Ducks have many economic uses, being farmed for their meat, eggs, feathers and down feathers. They are also kept and bred by aviculturists and often displayed in zoos. All domestic ducks are descended from the wild Mallard Anas platyrhynchos, except Muscovy Ducks. Many domestic breeds have become much larger than their wild ancestor, with a "hull length" (from base of neck to base of tail) of 30 cm (12 inches) or more and routinely able to swallow an adult British Common Frog, Rana temporaria, whole.

Foie gras is often made using the liver of domestic ducks, rather than of geese.

In a wildlife pond, the bottom over most of the area should be too deep for dabbling wild ducks to reach the bottom, to protect bottom-living life from being constantly disturbed and eaten by wild ducks dredging, and domestic ducks should not be allowed in.

Despite widespread misconceptions, most ducks other than female Mallards and domestic ducks do not "quack". A common false urban legend asserts that quacks do not echo.

Humor

In 2002, psychologist Richard Wiseman and colleagues at the University of Hertfordshire (UK) finished a year-long LaughLab experiment, concluding that, of the animals in the world, the duck is the type that attracts most humor and silliness; he said "If you're going to tell a joke involving an animal, make it a duck." The word "duck" may have become an inherently funny word in many languages because ducks are seen as a silly animal, and their odd appearance compared to other birds. Of the many ducks in fiction, many are silly cartoon characters (see the New Scientist article mentioning humor in the word "duck").

"Quacks like a duck"

The expression "quacks like a duck" is sometimes a short form for "It looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it swims like a duck, so it's a duck.", used as proverbial to counter abstruse arguments that something is not what it appears to be.

Trivia

• Some ancient Egyptian art depicts some ships of the Sea Peoples with ornamental prows shaped like a duck's head.

Gallery

• African Comb Duck
• Mallard drake
• Ruddy Shelduck - not a true duck but a member of the Tadorninae
• Male Wood Duck in eclipse plumage
• Female Mallard
• Female Mallard with ducklings
• Male Muscovy duck Male Muscovy duck
• Mandarin Duck at Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre, Gloucestershire, England.
• Ducks in a pond
• Ducks and geese in a yard in Manchester, UK Ducks and geese in a yard in Manchester, UK
• Indian Runner Duck Indian Runner Duck

See also

• Duck-baiting
• Duck hunting
• Ducks Unlimited
• Domesticated duck — ducks kept as pets or show animals and for meat and eggs and down
• Duck pond
• List of fictional ducks

References

1. Ogden, Evans. "Dabbling Ducks". CWE. Retrieved 2006-11-02.
2. "Mallard - Nature Notes". Ducks Unlimited Canada. Retrieved 2006-11-02.
3. Amos, Jonathan. "Sound science is quackers". BBC News. Retrieved 2006-11-02.
4. Cornelius. "The Battle of the Nile". The South African Military History Society. Retrieved 2006-11-02.

External links

• "The quack doesn't echo" urban legend (from Snopes.com)
• Guide to keeping ducks
• Duck videos on the Internet Bird Collection
• Scientists Track Pintail-Duck Migration to Learn More About the Species' Population Decline
• Duck migration question
• Ducks Unlimited Conservation
• Raising Ducks, Geese & Swans
• Tufted duck (good for foreign names)
• list of books (useful looking abstracts)
• San Francisco Bay Area Duck Population
• Birds on the Brink (ruddy ducks' impact on white-headed ducks by crossbreeding in the wild)
• Ducks at a Distance, by Rob Hines at Project Gutenberg - A modern illustrated guide to identification of US waterfowl.
• Duck Stock Photos

• Ducks
• Heraldic birds
• Poultry
• Game birds
• Fauna of Minnesota