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The Muscovy duck (''Cairina moschata'') is a large duck native to the Americas, from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and Mexico south to Argentina and Uruguay. Small wild and feral breeding populations have established themselves in the United States, particularly in Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, the Big Island of Hawaii, as well as in many other parts of North America, including southern Canada. Feral Muscovy ducks are found in New Zealand, Australia, and in parts of Europe.

It is a large duck, with the males about long, and weighing up to . Females are noticeably smaller, and only grow to , roughly half the males' size. The bird is predominantly black and white, with the back feathers being iridescent and glossy in males, while the females are more drab. The amount of white on the neck and head is variable, as well as the bill, which can be yellow, pink, black, or any mixture of these colors. It may have white patches or bars on the wings, which become more noticeable during flight. Both sexes have pink or red wattles around the bill, those of the male being larger and more brightly colored.

Although the Muscovy duck is a tropical bird, it adapts well to cooler climates, thriving in weather as cold as and able to survive even colder conditions. In general, Barbary duck is the term used for ''C. moschata'' in a culinary context.

The domestic subspecies, '' Cairina moschata domestica'', is commonly known in Spanish as the ''pato criollo''. They have been bred since pre-Columbian times by Native Americans and are heavier and less able to fly long distances than the wild subspecies. Their plumage color is also more variable. Other names for the domestic breed in Spanish are ''pato casero'' ("backyard duck") and ''pato mudo'' ("mute duck").

Description

All Muscovy ducks have long claws on their feet and a wide, flat tail. In the domestic drake (male), length is about and weight is , while the domestic hen (female) is much smaller, at in length and in weight. Large domesticated males often weigh up to , and large domesticated females up to .

The true wild Muscovy duck, from which all domestic Muscovies originated, is blackish, with large white wing patches. Length can range from , wingspan from and weight from . On the head, the wild male has a short crest on the nape. The bill is black with a speckling of pale pink. A blackish or dark red knob can be seen at the bill base, which is similar in colour to the bare skin of the face. The eyes are yellowish-brown. The legs and webbed feet are blackish. The wild female is similar in plumage, but much smaller, with a feathered face and lacking the prominent knob. The juvenile is duller overall, with little or no white on the upperwing.

Domesticated birds may look similar; most are dark brown or black mixed with white, particularly on the head. Other colors, such as lavender or all-white, are also seen. Both sexes have a nude black-and-red or all-red face; the drake also has pronounced caruncles at the base of the bill and a low erectile crest of feathers. ''C. moschata'' ducklings are mostly yellow with buff-brown markings on the tail and wings. For a while after hatching, juveniles lack the distinctive wattles associated with adult individuals, and resemble the offspring of various other ducks, such as mallards. Some domesticated ducklings have a dark head and blue eyes, others a light brown crown and dark markings on their nape. They are agile and speedy precocial birds.

The drake has a low breathy call, and the hen a quiet trilling coo.

The karyotype of the Muscovy duck is 2n=80, consisting of three pairs of macrochromosomes, 36 pairs of microchromosomes, and a pair of sex chromosomes. The two largest macrochromosome pairs are submetacentric, while all other chromosomes are acrocentric or probably telocentric for the smallest microchromosomes. The submetacentric chromosomes and the Z (female) chromosome show rather little constitutive heterochromatin (C bands), while the W chromosomes are at least two-thirds heterochromatin.

Male Muscovy ducks have helical penises that become erect to in s. Females have vaginas that coil in the opposite direction that appear to have evolved to limit forced copulation by males.

Etymology

Common name “Muscovy”

"Muscovy" is an old name for the region of Russia surrounding Moscow, but these ducks are neither native there nor were introduced there before they became known in Western Europe. It is not quite clear how the term came about; it very likely originated between 1550 and 1600, but did not become widespread until somewhat later.

In one suggestion, it has been claimed that the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands traded these ducks to Europe occasionally after 1550; this chartered company became eventually known as the "Muscovy Company" or "Muscovite Company" so the ducks might thus have come to be called "Muscovite ducks" or "Muscovy ducks" in keeping with the common practice of attaching the importer's name to the products they sold. But while the Muscovite Company initiated vigorous trade with Russia, they hardly, if at all, traded produce from the Americas; thus, they are unlikely to have traded ''C. moschata'' to a significant extent.

Alternatively—just as in the " turkey" (which is also from North America, not Turkey) and the " guineafowl" (which are not limited to Guinea)—"Muscovy" might be simply a generic term for an exotic place, in reference to the singular appearance of these birds. This is evidenced by other names suggesting the species came from lands where it is not actually native, but from where much "outlandish" produce was imported at that time (see below).

Yet another view—not incompatible with either of those discussed above—connects the species with the Muisca, a Native American nation in today's Colombia. The duck is native to these lands also, and it is likely that it was kept by the Muisca as a domestic animal to some extent. It is conceivable that a term like "Muisca duck", hard to comprehend for the average European of those times, would be corrupted into something more familiar. Likewise, the Miskito Indians of the Miskito Coast in Nicaragua and Honduras heavily relied on it as a domestic species, and the ducks as well may have been named after this region.

Species name “''moschata''”

Linnaeus’ description of ''Anas moschata'' only consists of a curt but entirely unequivocal ''nasfacie nuda papillosa'' ("A duck with a naked and carunculated face"), and his primary reference is his earlier work ''Fauna Svecica''. But Linnaeus refers also to older sources, wherein much information on the origin of the common name is found.

Conrad Gessner is given by Linnaeus as a source, but the '' Historia animalium'' mentions the Muscovy duck only in passing. Ulisse Aldrovandi discusses the species in detail, referring to the wild birds and its domestic breeds variously as ''anas cairina'', ''anas indica'' or ''anas libyca'' – "duck from Cairo", "Indian duck" (in reference to the West Indies) or " Libyan duck". But his ''anas indica'' (based, like Gessner's brief discussion, ultimately on the reports of Christopher Columbus's travels) also seems to have included another species, perhaps a whistling-duck (''Dendrocygna''). Already however the species is tied to some more or less nondescript "exotic" locality – "Libya" could still refer to any place in Northern Africa at that time – where it did not natively occur. Francis Willughby discusses "The Muscovy duck" as ''anas moschata'' and expresses his belief that Aldrovandi's and Gessner's ''anas cairina'', ''anas indica'' and ''anas libyca'' (which he calls "The Guiny duck", adding another mistaken place of origin to the list) refer to the very same species. Finally, John Ray attempts to clear up the confusion by providing an alternative explanation for the name's etymology:

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