Ruddy Duck

About the Ruddy Duck

The ruddy duck (Oxyura jamaicensis) is a species of duck, one of six extant species of stiff-tailed duck (genus Oxyura). In the 1940s, the ruddy duck was introduced to the United Kingdom, where it established a population. Outside the Americas, the ruddy duck is considered a highly invasive species, prompting many countries to initiate culling projects to eradicate it from the native ecosystem.

The generic name is derived from Ancient Greek oxus meaning "sharp", and oura meaning "tail". The specific name jamaicensis means "from Jamaica". The ruddy duck has also been nicknamed "butterball", a term used to describe an individual that is somewhat fat, due to its short and stout stature making activities like flying and walking upright awkward.

The ruddy duck was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the other ducks, geese and swans in the genus Anas and coined the binomial name Anas jamaicensis. Gmelin based his description on the "Jamaica shoveler" that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham from a specimen that he... Wikipedia →