Blue-billed teal | |
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Anseriformes |
Family: | Anatidae |
Genus: | Spatula |
Species: | S. hottentota |
Binomial name | |
Spatula hottentota (Eyton, 1838) | |
Synonyms | |
Anas punctata Burchell, 1822 (senior synonym) Contents |
The blue-billed teal, spotted teal or Hottentot teal (Spatula hottentota) is a species of dabbling duck of the genus Spatula. It is migratory resident in eastern and southern Africa, from Sudan and Ethiopia west to Niger and Nigeria and south to South Africa and Namibia. [1] [2] In west Africa and Madagascar it is sedentary.
The blue-billed teal breed year round, depending on rainfall, and stay in small groups or pairs. They build nests above water in tree stumps and use vegetation. Ducklings leave the nest soon after hatching, and the mother's parenting is limited to providing protection from predators and leading young to feeding areas. [3] This species is omnivorous and prefers smaller shallow bodies of water. [4]
The blue-billed teal is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies. The status of the blue-billed teal on the IUCN Red List is Least Concern. [1]
Several authorities still refer to this species as the Hottentot teal, however, as the word "Hottentot" is an offensive term for the Khoisan people, there has been a movement to change the vernacular name. [5]
Spatula hottentota [6] was previously placed in the genus Anas, called Anas punctata. This name was suppressed owing to confusion over type specimens. [7] It has been also referred as Anas hottentota. [8] and Querquedula hottentota. [9]
Blue-billed teal is considered monotypic, with no subspecies being recognised.
Adult males have dark brown crown contrasting with paler face, throat, breast and side except for a blackish thumb-shaped patch on the ear region. [8] The back of the neck is spotted with black and this spotting extends down through the neck and become intensively spotted on the breast, the spots appear to be larger and less obvious on the light brown flanks and abdomen, and the posterior underparts and under tail coverts becoming vermiculated with black. [8] The scapulars and tail are dark brown to black, the upper wing surface is blackish as well, with the coverts giving a greenish gloss. [8] An iridescent green speculum exists on the secondaries, bounded posteriorly by narrow black and terminal white bars. [8] The iris is brown, the legs and feet are bluish gray, and the bill is light bluish gray with a blackish culmen and nail. [8]
Females have browner crowns, they have less contrasting facial markings and more rounded scapulars, the under tail coverts are not vermiculated, and the wing is less glossy and colorful than that of an adult male. [8]
Juveniles resemble adult females but are duller throughout the body and less distinctively marked with spots. [8] [10] Ducklings have grayish brown underparts and yellowish grey below, the cheeks is paler with pinky puff wash and grey-brown ear patch. [10]
See External Links for duck external anatomy.
The blue-billed teal was described as the smallest known duck by D. D. Thomas and J. B. Condy in 1965. [11]
The range of the blue-billed teal extends in Africa from Angola, Zambia, eastern Congo, Malawi, northern Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, southern Ethiopia, Sudan and Madagascar. [8] They are mainly found in tropical eastern Africa: Ethiopia to Cape Province, westward to northern Botswana and Namibia, and Madagascar. [12] [13]
See External Links for their distribution map.
The blue-billed teal prefers habitats with abundant floating-leaf plants and fringe vegetations, including shallow fresh-water swamps, marshes, streams, shallow small lakes and ponds with fringed edges of reeds or papyrus. [8] [12] [13] They are observed to spend the twilight and night hours dabbling in very shallow waters and move to deeper and safer parts of the marsh during daytime. [8]
The blue-billed teal is sedentary in West Africa and Madagascar but partly migratory elsewhere, following a regular but unpredictable short-distance migration routes (up to 700 km) in southern and eastern Africa in response to changing water levels. [14]
The blue-billed teal prefers feeding at muddy edges, it will also feed on lands and flooded fields like rice paddies, and in waterside that is disturbed heavily by livestock. [10] It feeds in well-vegetated areas by dabbling, swimming or on foot. [10] No diving during foraging is recorded. [8] It is omnivorous, [10] although its diet consists mainly of grass seeds, especially of the grass Sacciolepis, [8] however it may also consume aquatic invertebrates almost exclusively such as crustaceans like ostracods, molluscs, water insects such as beetles and their larvae, if these are super abundant. [8] [10]
Molt is poorly understood in the blue-billed teal, there is no identified eclipse plumage in males, but breeding males are much brighter than females and the breast spots are more distinct. [10]
Both sexes produce series of clicking notes, given as harsh ke-ke-ke when they are disturbed, during flying or within flock. [10] Males produce a highly distinctive wooden rattling call that sounds like a mechanical rattle, while the female has a typical quack and a decrescendo call of only a few notes. [10]
The breeding behavior of the blue-billed teal is relatively undemonstrative. Based on current research, the bond of blue-billed teal does not extend beyond the female's incubation period, suggesting the bond is presumably reestablished annually. [8] Although majority of breeding is observed in summer, this species also breed in winter, and thus courtship behavior can be seen throughout the whole year. [8] The most common display in this species is the combination of female inciting and male turning the back of the head. [8] Female blue-billed teal incites males by doing lateral movements silently or nearly silently, and males usually respond by swimming ahead and turning the back of the head. [8] However, the males may respond by drinking, they raise their neck vertically and produce a soft mechanical series of call notes (burping) and they sometimes combine these two displays in a burp-drinking order. [8] Moreover, during social display, the duck frequently perform a wing-flapping and both-wing-stretch sequence of behavior that seems to be a significant part of the display. [8] Pre-copulatory behavior consists of mutual head pumping, and post-copulatory display by the male may vary from no perceptible activity to a swimming shake, wing flapping, or burping. [8] The female most usually only bathes after copulation. [8] The cluster size for this species ranges from 6 to 8 eggs with 7 being the most frequently encountered number. [8] However, based on Clark's observation on the Witwatersrand, the ducklings in families ranges from 1 to 7 with 3 predominating. [15] Incubation period ranges from 25 to 27 days for naturally incubated clutches. [8] The male may remain nearby as the female incubates, but there is no indication of further male participation in brood rearing. [15] So far as is known, the species is not multiple-brooded, although nest failure may lead to re-nesting. [8]
It is a least concern species on the IUCN Red List. However, habitat degradation is a threat to this species. [16] Protecting wetland and waterside vegetation and controlling hunting will help maintain the population. [10]
The Anatinae are a subfamily of the family Anatidae. Its surviving members are the dabbling ducks, which feed mainly at the surface rather than by diving. The other members of the Anatinae are the extinct moa-nalo, a young but highly apomorphic lineage derived from the dabbling ducks.
The northern shoveler, known simply in Britain as the shoveler, is a common and widespread duck. It breeds in northern areas of Europe and across the Palearctic and across most of North America, wintering in southern Europe, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Central America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. It is a rare vagrant to Australia. In North America, it breeds along the southern edge of Hudson Bay and west of this body of water, and as far south as the Great Lakes west to Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon.
The gadwall is a common and widespread dabbling duck in the family Anatidae.
The Eurasian teal, common teal, or Eurasian green-winged teal is a common and widespread duck that breeds in temperate Eurosiberia and migrates south in winter. The Eurasian teal is often called simply the teal due to being the only one of these small dabbling ducks in much of its range. The bird gives its name to the blue-green colour teal.
The Green-winged Teal or American Teal is a common and widespread duck that breeds in the northern areas of North America except on the Aleutian Islands. It was considered conspecific with the Eurasian teal for some time, but the two have since been split into separate species. The American Ornithological Society continues to debate this determination; however, nearly all other authorities consider it distinct based on behavioral, morphological, and molecular evidence. The scientific name is from Latin Anas, "duck" and carolinensis, "of Carolina".
The American black duck is a large dabbling duck in the family Anatidae. It was described by William Brewster in 1902. It is the heaviest species in the genus Anas, weighing 720–1,640 g (1.59–3.62 lb) on average and measuring 54–59 cm (21–23 in) in length with an 88–95 cm (35–37 in) wingspan. It somewhat resembles the female and eclipse male mallard in coloration, but has a darker plumage. The male and female are generally similar in appearance, but the male's bill is yellow while the female's is dull green with dark marks on the upper mandible. It is native to eastern North America. During the breeding season, it is usually found in coastal and freshwater wetlands from Saskatchewan to the Atlantic in Canada and the Great Lakes and the Adirondacks in the United States. It is a partially migratory species, mostly wintering in the east-central United States, especially in coastal areas.
The blue-winged teal is a species of bird in the duck, goose, and swan family Anatidae. One of the smaller members of the dabbling duck group, it occurs in North America, where it breeds from southern Alaska to Nova Scotia, and south to northern Texas. It winters along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and south into the Caribbean islands and Central America.
The cinnamon teal is a species of duck found in western North and South America. It is a small dabbling duck, with bright reddish plumage on the male and duller brown plumage on the female. It lives in marshes and ponds, and feeds mostly on plants.
The garganey is a small dabbling duck. It breeds in much of Europe and across the Palearctic, but is strictly migratory, with the entire population moving to Africa, India, Bangladesh and Australasia during the winter of the Northern hemisphere, where large flocks can occur. This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae. Like other small ducks such as the Eurasian teal, this species rises easily from the water with a fast twisting wader-like flight.
The grey teal is a dabbling duck found in open wetlands in Australia and New Zealand.
The fulvous whistling duck or fulvous tree duck is a species of whistling duck that breeds across the world's tropical regions in much of Mexico and South America, the West Indies, the southern United States, sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent. It has plumage that is mainly reddish brown, long legs and a long grey bill, and shows a distinctive white band across its black tail in flight. Like other members of its ancient lineage, it has a whistling call which is given in flight or on the ground. Its preferred habitat consists of wetlands with plentiful vegetation, including shallow lakes and paddy fields. The nest, built from plant material and unlined, is placed among dense vegetation or in a tree hole. The typical clutch is around ten whitish eggs. The breeding adults, which pair for life, take turns to incubate, and the eggs hatch in 24–29 days. The downy grey ducklings leave the nest within a day or so of hatching, but the parents continue to protect them until they fledge around nine weeks later.
The brown teal is a species of dabbling duck of the genus Anas native to New Zealand. For many years it had been considered to be conspecific with the flightless Auckland and Campbell teals in Anas aucklandica; the name "brown teal" has also been largely applied to that entire taxon. Common in the early years of European colonisation, the "brown duck" was heavily harvested as a food source. Its numbers quickly fell, especially in the South Island, and in 1921 they became fully protected. Captive breeding and releasing into predator-controlled areas has seen good localised populations re-introduced around the country in recent years.
Bernier's teal, also known as the Madagascar teal, is a species of duck in the genus Anas. It is endemic to Madagascar, where it is found only along the west coast. Part of the "grey teal" complex found throughout Australasia, it is most closely related to the Andaman teal.
The red-billed teal or red-billed duck is a dabbling duck which is an abundant resident breeder in southern and eastern Africa typically south of 10° S. This duck is not migratory, but will fly great distances to find suitable waters. It is highly gregarious outside the breeding season and forms large flocks.
The Puna teal is a species of dabbling duck in the family Anatidae. It was at one time regarded as a subspecies of the silver teal.
The Cape shoveler or Cape shoveller is a species of dabbling duck of the genus Spatula. It is resident in South Africa, and uncommon further north in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, southern Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Zambia.
The silver teal or versicolor teal is a species of dabbling duck in the genus Spatula. It breeds in South America.
The African pygmy goose is a perching duck from sub-Saharan Africa. It is the smallest of Africa's waterfowl, and one of the smallest in the world.
The South Georgia pintail, also misleadingly known as the South Georgian teal, is the nominate subspecies of the yellow-billed pintail, a duck in the dabbling duck subfamily Anatinae. It is endemic to the large (3,756 km2) subantarctic island of South Georgia and its accompanying archipelago, and is a vagrant to the South Sandwich Islands. It was among the birds noted by James Cook in January 1775, on the occasion of the first recorded landing on South Georgia, and was formerly considered a full species.
Teal is a blue-green color .
hottentota.