African Pygmy-Goose

About the African Pygmy-Goose

The African pygmy goose (Nettapus auritus) is a perching duck from sub-Saharan Africa. It is the smallest of Africa's waterfowl, and one of the smallest in the world. Though pygmy geese have beaks like those of geese, they are more related to the dabbling ducks and other species called 'ducks'.

It is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies. The African pygmy goose was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux in 1785. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Anas aurita in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The type locality is Madagascar. The current genus Nettapus was erected by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich von Brandt 1836. The word Nettapus is from the Ancient Greek... Wikipedia →