West Indian Whistling-Duck

About the West Indian Whistling-Duck

The West Indian whistling duck (Dendrocygna arborea) is a whistling duck that breeds in the Caribbean. Alternative names are black-billed whistling duck and Cuban whistling duck. The West Indian whistling duck was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Anas arborea. Linnaeus based his account on the descriptions by earlier authors. In 1725 the Irish physician, naturalist and collector Hans Sloane had described and illustrated the "Whistling-Duck" in the second volume of his A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica. Sloane noted that it was common on the island of Jamaica. The English naturalist George Edwards had included a description and a hand-coloured illustration of the "Black-bill'd whistling Duck" in the fourth volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds that was published in 1751. Edwards had been able to examine a specimen at the home of Admiral Sir Charles Wager at Stanley House in Chelsea, west London.

The West Indian whistling duck is now one of eight species placed in the genus Dendrocygna that was introduced in 1837... Wikipedia →