The long-tailed duck (''Clangula hyemalis''), formerly known as oldsquaw, is a medium-sized
sea duck
The sea ducks (''Mergini'') are a tribe of the duck subfamily of birds, the Anatinae. The taxonomy of this group is incomplete. Some authorities separate the group as a subfamily, while others remove some genera. Most species within the group sp ...
that breeds in the tundra and taiga regions of the arctic and winters along the northern coastlines of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is the only member of the
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
''Clangula''.
Taxonomy
The long-tailed duck was
formally described by the Swedish naturalist
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his Nobility#Ennoblement, ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalise ...
in 1758 in the
tenth edition of his ''
Systema Naturae''. He placed it with all the other ducks in the genus ''
Anas
''Anas'' is a genus of dabbling ducks. It includes the pintails, most teals, and the mallard and its close relatives. It formerly included additional species but following the publication of a molecular phylogenetic study in 2009 the genus was s ...
'' and coined the
binomial name ''Anas hyemalis''. Linnaeus cited the English naturalist
George Edwards's description and illustration of the "Long-tailed duck from Hudson's-Bay" that had been published in 1750 in the third volume of his ''A Natural History of Uncommon Birds''. This duck is now the only species placed in the genus ''Clangula'' that was introduced in 1819 to accommodate the long-tailed duck by the English zoologist
William Leach in an appendix to
John Ross's account of his voyage to look for the
Northwest Passage
The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the Arc ...
.
The genus name ''Clangula'' is a diminutive of the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''clangere'' meaning "to resound". The specific epithet ''hyemalis'' is Latin meaning "of winter". The species is considered to be
monotypic
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...
: no
subspecies are recognised.
[
In ]North American English
North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), v ...
it is sometimes called ''oldsquaw'', though this name has fallen out of favour. Some biologists have also feared that this name would be offensive to some Native American tribes involved in the conservation effort.
The American Ornithologists' Union stated that " political correctness" was not sufficient to change the name, but "to conform with English usage in other parts of the world", it officially adopted the name "Long-tailed Duck".[
An undescribed congener is known from the Middle Miocene Sajóvölgyi Formation (Late Badenian, 13–12 Mya) of ]Mátraszőlős
Mátraszőlős is a village in Nógrád County, Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Ro ...
, Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...
.[
]
Description
Adults have white underparts, though the rest of the plumage goes through a complex moulting process. The male has a long pointed tail ( long) and a dark grey bill
Bill(s) may refer to:
Common meanings
* Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States)
* Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature
* Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer
* Bill, a bird or animal's beak
Plac ...
crossed by a pink
Pink is the color of a namesake flower that is a pale tint of red. It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most often associated with charm, politeness, ...
band. In winter, the male has a dark cheek patch on a mainly white head and neck, a dark breast and mostly white body. In summer, the male is dark on the head, neck and back with a white cheek patch. The female has a brown back and a relatively short pointed tail. In winter, the female's head and neck are white with a dark crown. In summer, the head is dark. Juveniles resemble adult females in autumn plumage, though with a lighter, less distinct cheek patch.
The males are vocal and have a musical yodelling call ''ow, ow, owal-ow''.
Behaviour
Breeding
Their breeding habitat is in tundra
In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless mou ...
pools and marshes, but also along sea coasts and in large mountain lakes in the North Atlantic region, Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
, northern Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, northern Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
, and Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
. The nest
A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of organic materi ...
is located on the ground near water; it is built using vegetation and lined with down. They are migratory and winter along the eastern and western coasts of North America, on the Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
, coastal northern Europe and Asia, with stragglers to the Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...
. The most important wintering area is the Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...
, where a total of about 4.5 million gather. As of 2022 it has also been breeding in parts of Western Europe, such as on the Marker Wadden
The Marker Wadden is an artificial archipelago under development in the Markermeer, a lake in the Netherlands. The first island was inaugurated on 24 September 2016.
Project
The project was proposed in 2012 by the Vereniging Natuurmonumente ...
in The Netherlands.
Food and feeding
The long-tailed duck is gregarious, forming large flocks in winter and during migration. They feed by diving for mollusk
Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is e ...
s, crustacean
Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group can ...
s and some small fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...
. Although they usually feed close to the surface, they are capable of diving to depths of . According to the Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds they can dive to 80 fathoms (146 meters or 480 feet). They are the only ducks that use their wings to dive, which gives them the ability to dive much deeper than other ducks.
Status
The long-tailed duck is still hunted across a large part of its range. There has been a significant decline in the number of birds wintering in the Baltic Sea, partly due to their susceptibility to being trapped in gillnets. For these reasons the International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of nat ...
(IUCN) has categorised the long-tailed duck as vulnerable. It is one of the species to which the '''' (AEWA) applies.
References
{{Reflist, refs=
[{{cite journal , author=American Ornithologists' Union , year=2000 , title=Forty-second supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union ''Check-list of North American Birds'' , journal=]The Auk
''Ornithology'', formerly ''The Auk'' and ''The Auk: Ornithological Advances'', is a peer-reviewed scientific journal and the official publication of the American Ornithological Society (AOS). It was established in 1884 and is published quarterly. ...
, volume=117 , issue=3 , pages=847–858 , doi=10.1642/0004-8038(2000)117 847:fsstta.0.co;2, doi-access=free
[{{cite book , last=Godfrey , first=W. Earl , date=1966 , title=The Birds of Canada , location=Ottawa , publisher=National Museum of Canada , page=72]
[{{cite journal , last1=Gál , first1=Erika , last2=Hír , first2=János , last3=Kessler , first3=Eugén , last4=Kókay , first4=József , year=1998–1999 , title=Középsõ-miocén õsmaradványok, a Mátraszõlõs, Rákóczi-kápolna alatti útbevágásból. I. A Mátraszõlõs 1. lelõhely , trans-title=Middle Miocene fossils from the sections at the Rákóczi chapel at Mátraszőlős. Locality Mátraszõlõs I. , language=hu , journal=Folia Historico Naturalia Musei Matraensis , volume=23 , pages=33–78 , url=http://www.matramuzeum.hu/Personal/folia/23/03MATSZOLOS.PDF , access-date=2007-02-06 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721111701/http://www.matramuzeum.hu/Personal/folia/23/03MATSZOLOS.PDF , archive-date=2011-07-21 , url-status=dead ]
[{{cite book , last=Sibley , first=David Allen , author-link=David Allen Sibley , date=2000 , title=The Sibley Guide to Birds , location=New York , publisher=Knopf , pag]
97
, isbn=0-679-45122-6 , url-access=registration , url=https://archive.org/details/sibleyguidetobir00sibl_0/page/97
[Though '']squaw
The English word ''squaw'' is an ethnic and sexual slur, historically used for Indigenous North American women. Contemporary use of the term, especially by non-Natives, is considered derogatory, misogynist, and racist.King, C. Richard,De/Sc ...
'' originated as a word simply meaning "young woman" in the Massachusett
The Massachusett were a Native American tribe from the region in and around present-day Greater Boston in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name comes from the Massachusett language term for "At the Great Hill," referring to the Blue Hills ...
and related Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages ( or ; also Algonkian) are a subfamily of indigenous American languages that include most languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically simi ...
, it is now considered offensive by many Native Americans and is labelled as such in modern dictionaries.
External links
{{Commons category, Clangula hyemalis
{{Wikispecies, Clangula hyemalis
* {{InternetBirdCollection, long-tailed-duck-clangula-hyemalis
* {{VIREO, Long-tailed+Duck
Feathers of Long-tailed Duck (''Clangula hyemalis'')
* {{IUCN_Map, 22680427, Clangula hyemalis
{{Odontoanserae, B., state=collapsed
{{Taxonbar, from=Q26597
{{Authority control
long-tailed duck
The long-tailed duck (''Clangula hyemalis''), formerly known as oldsquaw, is a medium-sized sea duck that breeds in the tundra and taiga regions of the arctic and winters along the northern coastlines of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is th ...
Birds of the Arctic
Holarctic birds
long-tailed duck
The long-tailed duck (''Clangula hyemalis''), formerly known as oldsquaw, is a medium-sized sea duck that breeds in the tundra and taiga regions of the arctic and winters along the northern coastlines of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is th ...
long-tailed duck
The long-tailed duck (''Clangula hyemalis''), formerly known as oldsquaw, is a medium-sized sea duck that breeds in the tundra and taiga regions of the arctic and winters along the northern coastlines of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is th ...