Last month we received an inquiry about a strange duck from one of our Florida readers. At first glance, a prime topic for the Ask a Birder series but also an opportunity to delve a bit deeper. There’s plenty to learn about ducks. Their breeding habits (raunchy and randy were oft-mentioned words in our editorial discussions) and their evolutionary biology. Enough to warrant an in-depth look beyond the simple answer!
On a personal note: my heart jumped when the first message and especially the photographs came in: I am not alone.
“Do you know what duck this is? It has the head of a Mallard and body of a Muscovi. If you have the time – and don’t mind – please let me know what it is. A name for it “Malscovi”, “Muscmally”. It really is bizarre looking. Today was so humid that I brought an old worn-out camera just in case I saw something. I’m going to wait for the humidity to drop (hopefully tomorrow) and shoot it with my good camera. Then I’ll send you a crisp clear pic. I think the voodoo looking duck (see top of post) is the sire to it. It was mating with Mallards, White Ducks, Teals – anything that would let it. It’s a spooky looking duck for sure. I call it Smartypants.”
Our very own Mike Bergin has written a post about these duck hybrids that got no less than 24 comments. Twenty-four!! Forget about posting about Green-bearded Helmet-crests, Germain’s Peacock-pheasant, or Coconut Lorikeet: just write about manky Mallards and fame is yours.
Although “manky” derives from an old Germanic word that has an equivalent in Dutch (“mank”) the proper term in Dutch for these duck hybrids is Soup Duck. I prefer this term for three reasons: it gives the ducks a clear destiny, it has wholesome connotations (who doesn’t like soup?) and it gives me an excuse to feature “Duck Soup” by the Marx Brothers with Kai’s funniest movie scene of all movies ever.
Our expert panel came to the careful conclusion that we are dealing with a hybrid Mallard x Domestic Duck and a Domestic Musk Duck cross or a Duclair breed domestic Mallard. That’s a lot of hybridising in one single bird. How’s that even possible? Aren’t species species? Indeed, the old-fashioned species concept stated simply that only members of a species mate with each other producing viable offspring. However, evolution is a continuous process so discrete units (i.e., species) will always be problematic. There are now 5 different concepts defining the term. It is thanks to the wider definition of species that 10000birds.com covers more than 10,000 species and that different ducks interbreed, with viable offspring as a result. My Lars Svensson has two pages dedicated to the 14 commonest hybrids in Europe! There are two possible reasons for this abundance of hybridisation in ducks (as well as in fowl, by the way): we see them more because we shoot and eat them or Pangalloanserae, being the most primitive of the Neognathae, are evolutionarily malleable… More research is required!
Ducks are fascinating creatures. They form an important element of our human culture, from Donald to Peking – crossing continents and language barriers. Plus they are beautiful and to stress that last point I’d like to end with a slightly paraphrased quote from Henry David Thoreau: “Ducks were sailing here and there on the lake’s surface, and a solitary loon, like a more living wave — a vital spot on the surface — laughed and frolicked, and showed its straight leg, for our amusement.“
Did you know that ducks have a regional accent? In London ducks have a louder, rougher quack, because they had to shout above the noise of city life. The ducks in the country make longer and more relaxed sounds.
Crosses between Muscovy and Mallard are sterile, but hybrid Mulards are apparently popular in farming as they can be killed at seven weeks, a week ahead of Muscovies, and they have a lower fat content. (Information from the book Man and Wildfowl, by Janet Kear).