fancy form with "poofy" hairdoo(park zoo; 2006-01-29)


Domestic Mallard ("Peking Duck")
Anas platyrhynchos

Native Range: worldwide in parks

Notes: the Mallard has been domesticated and artificially selected for decades to yield birds with a bewildering diversity of plumages, postures, and behaviors; furthermore, these domesticated forms often hybridize with one another and with various wild waterfowl, thereby further embellishing the variety of phenotypes that can be found in parks and zoos around the world. The following pictures give merely a hint of this amazing diversity.

hybrid between Mallard and poofy-hair-doo bird (Park; 2006-01-29)
portrait of that hybrid's head (Park; 2006-01-29)

another Mallard-like hybrid bird (Park; 2006-01-29) 		form with the "poofy hairdoo" (Park; 2006-01-29)

common white-plumaged form (Park; 2006-01-29)
group of white-plumaged forms (Park; 2006-01-29)

another odd mixture of domestic types (Park; 2006-01-29)
some forms have an upright stance Park; 2006-01-29)

other forms hybridize with yet other waterfowl species (Park; 2006-01-29)
another upright-walking form (Park; 2006-01-29)

mottled-brown form (Park; 2006-01-29)