词条 | mallard |
释义 | mallard bird ![]() ![]() During courtship, three or more males may display simultaneously, shaking heads and tails, performing intricate bill dipping and bobbing movements, and whistling. Mating is preceded by the pair facing each other and repeatedly jerking their heads downward, a display called pumping. The drake also has an elaborate display to announce a successful mating. Immediately after copulation, he flings his head up and back and whistles. Then he swims around the female in a gesture called nod-swimming while she bathes. After mating, drakes lose their flight feathers, becoming flightless for several weeks. The pair selects a nest site, most often in early evening, with the female always in the lead. It may be located in fields, in tall grass, or on muskrat lodges. They may take a week or more to select a site. The female constructs the nest from leaves, reeds, and grasses. During incubation, down from the female's breast is added. The five to ten or more eggs in the clutch all hatch within two hours, though they are laid over a two-week period. The chicks themselves synchronize their hatching, signaling one another by clicks from within the shell. Mallards, like all ducks, geese (goose), and swans (swan), belong to the family Anatidae of the order Anseriformes (anseriform). The black duck (A. rubripes) of Canada was once considered a subspecies of mallard. Mallards will mate with them—in fact, black duck females prefer mallard males. But most authorities now consider the black duck a separate species. Conversely, the Laysan teal (formerly A. platyrhynchos laysanensis), of which only a small population survives on Laysan Island west of Hawaii, is now classified as a separate species, although it was once classed as a mallard and looks very similar to a small mallard hen. Of the other races or subspecies, only one, the Greenland mallard (A. platyrhynchos conboschas), shows the strong sexual difference in plumage; all others (both sexes) resemble the hen of A. platyrhynchos platyrhynchos. |
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