Amazon duck
| Amazon duck | ||||||||||||
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Amazon ducks, males behind |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Amazonetta | ||||||||||||
| Boetticher , 1929 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Amazonetta brasiliensis | ||||||||||||
| ( Gmelin , 1789) |
The Amazon duck ( Amazonetta brasiliensis ) is a native to South America bird art that the family of ducks belongs (Anatidae).
The stock situation of the Amazon duck was classified in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2016 as “ Least Concern (LC) ” = “not endangered”.
Appearance
Amazon ducks reach a body length of up to 40 centimeters and weigh up to 600 grams. The Amazonette subspecies . brasiliensis ipecutiri is the significantly larger subspecies.
Sexual dimorphism is noticeable : males have red bills, red legs, and are pale gray on the sides of the head and neck. The females have individual whitish feather parks on their faces, but they lack the pale gray markings on the head and neck sides. Their beak is gray, the legs are distinctly dull red.
Fledglings are similar to the adult ones, but are a little lighter. The downy chicks have a horn-brown beak, a dark brown iris and orange-red feet. They are predominantly black-brown on the upper side of the body, the face and the underside of the body are golden yellow to straw yellow. The sexes can be differentiated from the 28th day of life: the beak of the male young birds turns red from this point in time.
Distribution and way of life
Amazon ducks live in pairs or in small groups on the edge of lakes, on ponds and in swamps in the tropical forest regions of South America east of the Andes . Their diet consists of aquatic plants . These are absorbed in the shallow water by being and rooting like the swimming ducks.
The Amazon ducks breed all year round. To do this, they build nests in the bank vegetation or floating nests in which 8–12 eggs are laid. In this species only the female breeds. However, the males take part in the rearing of the chicks, which are fully grown at one year. Their life expectancy in the wild is ten years.
The nest is built near the water in the bank vegetation. The breeding period of the Amazon duck is between 23 and 28 days. The female breeds alone.
Subspecies
There are two subspecies:
- Small Amazon duck ( A. b. Brasiliensis ) is the nominate form described by Gmelin in 1789. Its distribution area is Brazil , Suriname , Guyana , French Guiana , the central area of Venezuela , the east of Colombia and the northeast of Peru .
- Great Amazon Duck ( A. b. Ipecutiri ) was described by Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816 . It occurs in Brazil, the north of Argentina , the east of Bolivia , Uruguay and Paraguay .
attitude
Amazon ducks were first kept in Europe in 1850. The first breeds were brought to the London Zoo in 1878 and the Berlin Zoo in 1884. Hartmut Kolbe assumes that both the first import and the first breeding were in the nominated form. The first breeding of the Great Amazon Duck was achieved in 1962 by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust .
Trivia
Amazon ducks develop very quickly. Already in the 1960s there were considerations to develop a farm poultry from the Amazon duck in Brazil.
literature
- Janet Kear (Ed.): Ducks, Geese and Swans. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005, ISBN 0-19-854645-9 .
- Hartmut Kolbe: The world's ducks. Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-8001-7442-1 .
Web links
- Amazonetta brasiliensis in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed September 3, 2016th
- Videos, photos and sound recordings on Amazonetta brasiliensis in the Internet Bird Collection
- Amazon duck on Avibase
- Calling the Amazon Duck on Xeno Santo
Single receipts
- ↑ Amazonetta brasiliensis in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2016 Posted by: BirdLife International, 2016. Accessed October 11, 2017th
- ↑ a b c d Kolbe: The duck birds of the world. P. 192.
- ↑ Kolbe: The duck birds of the world. P. 191.
- ^ A b Clements, James, (2007) The Clements Checklist of the Birds of the World , Cornell University Press, Ithaca.