New Zealand Scaup

About the New Zealand Scaup

The New Zealand scaup (Aythya novaeseelandiae), also known as the black teal (or pāpango and several other names in Māori), is a diving duck species of the genus Aythya endemic to New Zealand. They weigh around 650 grams (23 oz) and measure around 40 centimetres (16 in), and have dark-coloured plumage. They are found throughout New Zealand in deep natural and man-made lakes and ponds.

New Zealand scaup lay around 7 eggs and the ducklings are immediately capable of diving to feed. Adult scaups can dive to at least 3 metres and for as long as a minute for aquatic plants and invertebrates. Scaups started declining in the late 1800s until they were fully protected in 1934, and their population is now increasing thanks to predator control and new habitat.

The New Zealand scaup 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 all the ducks, geese and swans in the genus Anas and coined the binomial name Anas novaeseelandiae. Gmelin based his description of the "New-Zealand duck" that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his... Wikipedia →