Editing Mottled duck

{{Short description|Species of bird}}
{{Speciesbox
| name = Mottled duck
| image = MottledDuck Gam.jpg
| image_caption = A pair of mottled ducks (male on left, female on right) at Everglades National Park, Florida, US
| status = LC
| status_system = IUCN3.1
| status_ref = <ref name="iucn status 12 November 2021">{{cite iucn |author=BirdLife International |date=2016 |title=''Anas fulvigula'' |volume=2016 |page=e.T22680178A95209889 |doi=10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22680178A95209889.en |access-date=12 November 2021}}</ref>
| status2 = G4
| status2_system = TNC
| status2_ref = <ref>{{cite web |title=NatureServe Explorer 2.0 |url=https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.100499/Anas_fulvigula |website=explorer.natureserve.org |access-date=27 May 2022}}</ref>
| genus = Anas
| species = fulvigula
| authority = [[Robert Ridgway|Ridgway]], 1874
| subdivision_ranks = Subspecies
| subdivision = * ''A. f. fulvigula'' <br/><small>Florida mottled duck</small>
* ''A. f. maculosa'' {{Taxobox_authority | author = Sennett | date = 1889 }}<br/><small>Gulf Coast mottled duck</small>
| range_map = Anas fulvigula map.svg
}}

The '''mottled duck''' ('''''Anas fulvigula'''''){{refn|group=note|[[Etymology]]: ''Anas'', [[Ancient Greek]] for a duck. ''fulvigula'', "tan-throated", from [[Latin]] ''fulva'' "tan" + ''gula'', "throat".}} or '''mottled mallard''' is a medium-sized species of [[dabbling duck]]. It is intermediate in appearance between the female [[mallard]] and the [[American black duck]]. It is closely related to those [[species]], and is sometimes erroneously considered a [[subspecies]] of the former.

Along the Gulf of Mexico coast, the mottled duck is one of the most frequently banded waterfowl. This is due in part to the fact that it is mostly non-migratory.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last1=Bonczek |first1=Elizabeth S. |last2=Ringelman |first2=Kevin M. |date=2021 |title=Breeding Ecology of Mottled Ducks: A Review |journal=The Journal of Wildlife Management|volume=85 |issue=5 |pages=825–837 |doi=10.1002/jwmg.22048 |s2cid=234850664 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2021JWMan..85..825B }}</ref> Approximately one out of every 20 mottled ducks is banded, making it an extremely prized and sought after bird among hunters.

==Subspecies==
There are two distinct [[subspecies]] of the mottled duck. One subspecies, the '''Gulf Coast mottled duck''' (''A. f. maculosa''), lives on the [[Gulf of Mexico]] coast between [[Alabama]] and [[Tamaulipas]] (Mexico); outside the breeding season, individual birds may venture as far south as [[Veracruz]]. The other, the '''Florida mottled duck''' (''A. f. fulvigula''), is resident in central and southern [[Florida]] and occasionally strays north to [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]]. The same disjunct distribution pattern was also historically found in the local [[sandhill crane]]s. Individuals of both subspecies were introduced into South Carolina in the 1970s and 1980s, where the birds of mixed ancestry have greatly expanded in range, extending through the Atlantic coastal plain of Georgia into northeastern Florida.<ref name="Birds of the World">{{cite journal |last1=Bielefeld |display-authors=etal |title=Mottled Duck |url=https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/motduc/cur/introduction |journal=Birds of the World |date=4 March 2020 |publisher=Cornell Lab of Ornithology |doi=10.2173/bow.motduc.01 |s2cid=216430094 |access-date=26 September 2020|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="eBird">{{cite web |url=https://ebird.org/map/motduc?neg=true&env.minX=-130.7953337827774&env.minY=35.894543807307656&env.maxX=-74.5453337827774&env.maxY=55.15764076883122&zh=true&gp=true&ev=Z&mr=1-12&bmo=1&emo=12&yr=all&byr=1900&eyr=2020|title=Mottled Duck Range Map |website=eBird |publisher=Cornell Lab of Ornithology |access-date=26 September 2020}}</ref>

==Description==
[[File:Mottled Duck at Bailey Tract Pond.jpg|thumb|left|In Florida, U.S.]]

The adult mottled duck is {{convert|44|to(-)|61|cm|in|abbr=on}} long from head to tail. It has a dark body, lighter head and neck, orange legs and dark eyes. Both sexes have a shiny green-blue [[speculum feathers|speculum]] (wing patch), which is not bordered with white as with the [[mallard]]. Males and females are similar, but the male's bill is bright yellow, whereas the female's is deep to pale orange, occasionally lined with black splotches around the edges and near the base.

The plumage is darker than in female mallards, especially at the tail, and the bill is yellower. In flight, the lack of a white border to the speculum is a key difference. The [[American black duck]] is darker than most mottled ducks, and its wing-patch is more purple than blue. The behaviour and voice are the same as the mallard.

Mottled ducks feed by dabbling in shallow water, and grazing on land. They mainly eat plants, but also some mollusks and aquatic insects. The ducks are fairly common within their restricted range; they are resident all-year round and do not [[bird migration|migrate]]. Their breeding habitat is brackish and intermediate coastal marshes, but they will also use human developed habitat such as retaining ponds, water impoundments, and agricultural land during the breeding season.<ref name=":0" /> According to a review of their breeding behaviors, mottled duck nests may be found in "pastures, levees, dry cordgrass marsh, cutgrass marsh, spoil banks, and small islands."<ref name=":0" />

'''Measurements''':<ref>{{Cite web|title=Mottled Duck Identification, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology|url=https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Mottled_Duck/id|access-date=2020-09-26|website=www.allaboutbirds.org|language=en}}</ref>

* Male:
** '''Length''': {{convert|19.7|-|22.5|in|cm|abbr=on}}
** '''Weight''': {{convert|30.9|-|43.8|oz|g|abbr=on}}
** '''Wingspan''': {{convert|32.7|-|34.3|in|cm|abbr=on}}
* Female:
** '''Length''': {{convert|18.5|-|21.0|in|cm|abbr=on}}
** '''Weight''': {{convert|24.7|-|40.6|oz|g|abbr=on}}
** '''Wingspan''': {{convert|31.5|-|327.2|in|cm|abbr=on}}

==Systematics==
The Floridian population, which occurs approximately south of [[Tampa]], is separated as the [[nominate subspecies]] ''Anas fulvigula fulvigula'' and is occasionally called the Florida mottled duck or Florida mallard. It differs from the other subspecies, the Gulf Coast mottled duck (''A. f. maculosa'') (etymology: ''maculosa'', Latin for "the mottled one"), by being somewhat lighter in color and less heavily marked; while both subspecies are intermediate between female mallards and American black ducks, the Florida mottled duck is closer to the former and the Gulf Coast mottled duck closer to the latter in appearance; this is mainly recognizable in the lighter head being quite clearly separated from the darker breast in Gulf Coast mottled ducks, but much less so in Florida mottled ducks. As the subspecies' ranges do not overlap, these birds can only be confused with female mallards and American black ducks however; particularly female American black ducks are often only reliably separable by their dark purple speculum from mottled ducks in the field.

[[mtDNA control region]] [[DNA sequence|sequence]] data indicates that these birds are derived from ancestral American black ducks, being far more distantly related to the mallard, and that the two subspecies, as a consequence of their rather limited range and sedentary habits, are genetically well distinct already.<ref name=McCracken2001/>

[[File:Mottled Duck.jpg|thumb|left|The Florida mottled duck (''A. f. fulvigula'')]]
As in all members of the "mallardine" [[clade]] of ducks, they are able to produce fertile [[Hybrid (biology)|hybrid]]s with their close relatives, the American black duck and the mallard. This has always been so to a limited extent; individuals of the migratory American black ducks which winter in the mottled duck's range may occasionally stay there and mate with the resident species, and for the mallard, which colonized [[North America]] later, the same holds true.<ref name=McCracken2001/> Genetic tools have been developed in order to robustly classify hybrids and to assess and monitor the genetic dynamics of introgression between the Florida mottled duck and the mallard.<ref name="genetic tools 2012" />

While the resultant [[gene flow]] is no cause for immediate concern,{{refn|group=note|Except in a scientific sense, as it requires large [[sample size]]s to appropriately study these ducks' [[phylogeny]] using mtDNA sequence data, which only documents a bird's [[evolution]]ary history on the [[maternal]] side.}} [[habitat destruction]] and excessive hunting could eventually reduce this species to the point where the hybridization with mallards would threaten to make it disappear as a distinct [[taxon]].<ref name=Rhymer1996/> This especially applies to the Florida mottled duck,<ref name=Mazourek1994/> in the fairly small range of which rampant [[habitat destruction]] due to [[urbanization]] and draining of wetlands has taken place in the last decades; this, in combination with [[Global warming|climate change]] affecting the [[Everglades]], could be sufficient to cause the Florida mottled duck to decline to a point where hunting would have to be restricted or prohibited.<ref name=McCracken2001/> At present, these birds too appear to be holding their own, with a population of 50,000-70,000 individuals. While hybridization is common, double white bars above and below the speculum are not a sufficient indicator of hybridization and therefore should not be used to determine genetics.<ref name="iucn status 12 November 2021" />

==Gallery==
<gallery widths="200px" heights="150px">
File:Mottled Duck pair RWD.jpg|Male and female - Florida
File:Mottled Duck female RWD2.jpg|Female - Florida
File:Mottled Duck male RWD3.jpg|Male - Florida
File:Mottled Duck male RWD2.jpg|Male - Florida
</gallery>

==Footnotes==
{{Reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{Reflist|refs=
<ref name=Mazourek1994>{{cite journal |last1=Mazourek |first1=J.C. |last2=Gray |first2=P.N. |year=1994 |title=The Florida duck or the mallard? |journal=Florida Wildlife |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=29–31 |url=http://www.floridaconservation.org/duck/mottled/documents/WeCantHaveBothArtcle.doc |access-date=2006-12-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070810190700/http://www.floridaconservation.org/duck/mottled/documents/WeCantHaveBothArtcle.doc |archive-date=2007-08-10 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

<ref name=McCracken2001>{{cite journal |last1=McCracken |first1=Kevin G. |last2=Johnson |first2=William P. |last3=Sheldon |first3=Frederick H. |author-link3=Fred Sheldon (ornithologist) |year=2001 |title=Molecular population genetics, phylogeography, and conservation biology of the mottled duck (''Anas fulvigula'') |journal=Conservation Genetics |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=87–102 |doi=10.1023/A:1011858312115 |s2cid=17895466 |url=http://mercury.bio.uaf.edu/~kevin_mccracken/reprints/cons-gen-2-87.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060907220825/http://mercury.bio.uaf.edu/~kevin_mccracken/reprints/cons-gen-2-87.pdf |archive-date=2006-09-07 }}</ref>

<ref name="genetic tools 2012">{{cite journal | title = Fifty-nine microsatellite markers for hybrid classification studies involving endemic Florida Mottled Duck (Anas fulvigula fulvigula) and invasive Mallards (A. platyrhynchos) | journal = Conservation Genetics Resources | last1 = Seyoum | first1 = S | last2 = Tringali | first2 = MD | last3 = Bielefeld | first3 = RR | last4 = Feddersen | first4 = JC | last5 = Benedict Jr | first5 = RJ | last6 = Fanning | first6 = AT | last7 = Barthel | first7 = B | last8 = Curtis | first8 = C | last9 = Puchulutegui | first9 = C | last10 = Roberts | first10 = ACM | last11 = Villanova Jr | first11 = VL | last12 = Tucker | first12 = EC | date = 2012 | volume = 4 | issue = 3 | pages = 681–687 | doi = 10.1007/s12686-012-9622-9| bibcode = 2012ConGR...4..681S | s2cid = 16072813 }}</ref>

<ref name=Rhymer1996>{{cite journal |last1=Rhymer |first1=Judith M. |last2=Simberloff |first2=Daniel |year=1996 |title=Extinction by hybridization and introgression |journal=[[Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics]] |volume=27 |pages=83–109 |doi=10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.27.1.83 }}</ref>
}}
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last1=Madge |first1=Steve |last2=Burn |first2=Hilary |year=1987 |title=Wildfowl : an identification guide to the ducks, geese and swans of the world |publisher=[[Helm Identification Guides|Christopher Helm]] |location=London |isbn=0-7470-2201-1}}
{{Refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Anas fulvigula}}
{{Wikispecies|Anas fulvigula}}
* {{VIREO|mottled+duck}}
* {{BirdLife|22680178|Anas fulvigula}}
* {{Avibase|name=Anas fulvigula}}
* {{IUCN_Map|22680178/95209889|Anas fulvigula}}
* {{Xeno-canto species|Anas|fulvigula|Mottled duck}}

{{Taxonbar|from=Q1002123}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Anas]]
[[Category:Ducks]]
[[Category:Birds of the United States]]
[[Category:Birds of Mexico]]
[[Category:Native birds of the Southeastern United States]]
[[Category:Birds described in 1874]]
[[Category:Taxa named by Robert Ridgway]]