White-cheeked Pintail

About the White-cheeked Pintail

The white-cheeked pintail (Anas bahamensis), also known as the Bahama pintail, Bahama duck, or Galápagos duck is a species of dabbling duck that is patchily distributed throughout South America and the Caribbean. It was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae under its current scientific name.

The white-cheeked pintail was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the current binomial name Anas bahamensis. Linnaeus based his account on the "Ilathera duck" that had been described and illustrated by the English naturalist Mark Catesby in the first volume of his book The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands that was published between 1729 and 1732.

Three subspecies are accepted: A. b. bahamensis Linnaeus, 1758 – West Indies and north South America A. b. rubrirostris Vieillot, 1816 – south Ecuador and south Brazil to north Argentina and north Chile A. b. galapagensis (Ridgway, 1890) – Galápagos Islands

The subspecies differ mainly in size, with A. b. bahamensis being smaller (male weight 474–533 g, female 505–633 g) and A. b. rubrirostris... Wikipedia →