Dendrocygna
| Whistling ducks | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Black-bellied whistling duck | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Anseriformes |
| Family: | Anatidae |
| Subfamily: |
Dendrocygninae Reichenbach, 1853 |
| Tribe: | Dendrocygnini |
| Genus: |
Dendrocygna Swainson, 1837 |
| Type species | |
|
Anas arcuata Horsfield, 1824 |
|
| Species | |
The whistling ducks or tree ducks are a subfamily, Dendrocygninae, of the duck, goose and swan family of birds, Anatidae. They are not true ducks. In other taxonomic schemes, they are either considered a separate family, Dendrocygnidae, or the tribe Dendrocygnini in the goose subfamily Anserinae. The subfamily has one genus, Dendrocygna, which contains eight living species, and one undescribed extinct species from Aitutaki of the Cook Islands.
Whistling ducks were first described by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae in 1758: the black-bellied whistling duck (then Anas autumnalis) and the West Indian whistling duck (then Anas arborea). In 1837, William John Swainson named the genus Dendrocygna to distinguish whistling ducks from the other waterfowl. The type species was listed as the wandering whistling duck (D. arcuata), formerly named by Thomas Horsfield as Anas arcuata.
Whistling duck taxonomy, including that of the entire infraorder Anseriformes, is complicated and disputed. Under a traditional classification proposed by ornithologist Jean Théodore Delacour based on morphological and behavioral traits, whistling ducks belong to the tribe Dendrocygnini under the family Anatidae and subfamily Anserinae. Following the revisions by ornithologist Paul Johnsgard, Dendrocygnini includes the genus Thalassornis (the white-backed duck) under this system.
...
Wikipedia