98 Fun Facts About Ducks

What is a defining characteristic of most duck species' feet that aids in swimming?

Ducks possess webbed feet, typically palmate, where three front toes are connected by a flexible membrane. This adaptation allows them to efficiently propel themselves through water like paddles.

What is a common collective noun for a group of ducks, especially when they are on the water?

Ducks on the water are a raft, a paddling or a bunch; on land the same birds become a badling, a brace or a safe.

Dabbling ducks like the mallard feed by up-ending at the surface; what makes up much of what they strain from the water?

Grasses and aquatic plants are the staple, strained through comb-like lamellae along the bill. Diving ducks such as mergansers go deeper and take fish.

Which duck's drake sports a pair of orange 'sail' feathers on its back?

The male Mandarin Duck, native to East Asia, is widely considered one of the most beautiful ducks due to its unique and highly colorful feathers, including orange 'sails' on its back.

What is the most widely recognized sound commonly associated with a duck?

The classic quack comes mainly from female mallards and their close relatives; most duck species do not quack at all, producing whistles, coos, yodels and grunts instead. The claim that a quack does not echo was debunked at the University of Salford in 2003.

What is an adult male duck called?

An adult male duck is a drake; the female is a duck or hen and the young a duckling. Gander, cob and cockerel are the male goose, swan and chicken.

Ducks belong to which biological family of waterfowl, shared with geese and swans?

Ducks, geese and swans all belong to the family Anatidae, about 170 species worldwide; the screamers and the magpie goose are the only other waterfowl families.

Almost every breed of domestic duck descends from which single wild species?

Almost all domestic ducks, from the Pekin to the Indian Runner, descend from the mallard; the Muscovy duck is the one exception, domesticated separately in the Americas.

Which sea duck's breast down, plucked by the female to line her nest, fills luxury pillows and quilts?

Eiderdown comes from the common eider; the female plucks down from her breast to line the nest, and Icelandic farmers gather it after the ducklings leave.

Which domesticated waterfowl native to the Americas is commonly known in Spanish as the pato criollo?

The Muscovy duck, called pato criollo in Spanish, was domesticated in the Americas before European contact; feral flocks now live in Florida, Australia and New Zealand.

The English word 'duck' comes from an Old English word meaning what?

'Duck' comes from Old English duce, meaning diver, from the verb ducan, to dive; it replaced the older word ened, a cousin of German Ente and Dutch eend.

Which stiff-tailed waterfowl is nicknamed 'butterball' for its short, stout build?

The ruddy duck, a stiff-tailed diver, earned hunters' nickname 'butterball'; introduced to Britain in the 1940s, it was culled across Europe to protect the native white-headed duck.

What former North American name for the long-tailed duck was dropped in 2000?

The long-tailed duck was called oldsquaw in North America until the AOU dropped the name in 2000, after biologists warned it could offend Alaska Native tribes whose help conservation needed.

What is Donald Duck's rarely used middle name?

Donald's full name is Donald Fauntleroy Duck; the middle name first appeared on his draft notice in the 1942 short Donald Gets Drafted.

Which 1943 Donald Duck propaganda short won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film?

Der Fuehrer's Face, in which Donald dreams he works in a Nazi munitions factory, won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film at the 1943 ceremony.

Who first voiced Donald Duck's barely intelligible quacking in 1934?

Nash had auditioned for Disney after hearing the studio wanted people who could make animal sounds; Tony Anselmo took over the role after him.

In which ocean did 28,800 Friendly Floatees bath toys wash overboard in 1992, aiding a study of currents?

The container spilled in the North Pacific in January 1992, en route from Hong Kong to Tacoma; oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer tracked the 28,800 toys as they came ashore.

Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman is famous for touring the world with a giant inflatable version of what?

His first giant duck, built in 2007, measured 16.5 by 20 by 32 metres and weighed roughly 600 kilograms.

Which Sesame Street Muppet serenades his bath toy with 'Rubber Duckie'?

Ernie sings 'Rubber Duckie' to his bath toy; the 1970 song reached number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100, a rare feat for a Muppet.

Wood duck ducklings leave their tree-cavity nest the day after hatching by jumping from as high as what?

They survive by landing in water or on soft leaf litter; the species had crashed in the late 1800s before nest boxes and hunting limits helped it rebound.

In Korea, pairs of carved wooden ducks are traditionally given as gifts at what kind of occasion?

The species involved is the mandarin duck, which in Korean culture stands for peace, fidelity and plentiful offspring.

About how much did Garganornis ballmanni, the largest known member of the duck-goose-swan family, weigh?

Garganornis ballmanni, a flightless goose from Miocene Italy, is estimated at about 22 kg (49 lb), heavier than the trumpeter swan, the largest living anatid at up to 17 kg.

The Long Island duck descends from white birds imported in the 1870s from which country?

The white Pekin ducks were shipped from China in 1873; a few went to Connecticut, but the flock that thrived was on Long Island, which gave the American strain its name.

Caneton à la rouennaise requires the cooked bird's carcass to be processed how?

The press extracts all the juices, which go into the sauce; the Rouen is a famous French breed used for the dish.

The Aylesbury duck, a classic English table breed, is named after the county town of which county?

Buckinghamshire's county town gave the white Aylesbury duck its name, and when Peking ducks first reached Britain in the 19th century they were crossed with Aylesburys for vigour.

Bianyifang, the first restaurant to specialise in Peking duck, opened in Beijing in which year?

Bianyifang opened in 1416 during the Ming Yongle era, roasting ducks in a closed oven; Quanjude, whose founder developed the hung oven, followed in 1864.

Which future US Secretary of State was served Peking duck on his secret 1971 China visit?

Henry Kissinger, then Nixon's national security adviser, ate Peking duck with Zhou Enlai on his secret July 1971 trip to Beijing; he became Secretary of State in 1973.

Nintendo's 1984 game Duck Hunt was played with which light-gun accessory?

The NES Zapper only works on old CRT televisions, and the smirking dog was made impossible to shoot on console versions to keep the game family-friendly.

Roughly how many copies of Duck Hunt were sold worldwide, helped by NES bundles?

Duck Hunt sold about 28 million copies, most of them bundled with the NES; it grew out of a 1976 Nintendo light-gun toy, Beam Gun: Duck Hunt, by Gunpei Yokoi and Masayuki Uemura.

What is the drab, female-like summer plumage that male northern ducks moult into called?

During the eclipse period the birds are briefly flightless, so looking like a hen is useful camouflage.

Which feeding-based group is heavier than dabblers and struggles more to take off?

Diving ducks such as scaup and canvasback are heavier-bodied with legs set far back, so they patter along the surface to take off; the extra weight helps them submerge.

How many eggs does a mallard, Anas platyrhynchos, usually lay in a clutch?

A mallard clutch usually has 8 to 13 eggs, laid about one a day and incubated for roughly 28 days; the ducklings can swim as soon as they hatch.

The Latin species name of the wood duck, Aix sponsa, translates to what?

Sponsa is Latin for bride, a nod to the drake's wedding-day finery; Linnaeus named the bird in 1758 from Mark Catesby's 'summer duck' of Carolina.

Which Northumbrian saint, who protected nesting eiders on the Farnes, gives the bird its nickname?

A famous eider colony lives on the Farne Islands, where Cuthbert lived as a hermit; the bird is the county's emblem.

In which year did Howard the Duck first appear as a comic-book character?

Howard the Duck debuted in December 1973 in Marvel's Adventure into Fear #19, created by Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik; his own series followed in 1976.

In which year did the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim become simply the Anaheim Ducks?

The team became the Anaheim Ducks in 2006, a year after Henry and Susan Samueli bought it from Disney, and won the Stanley Cup in its first season under the new name.

Roughly how many rubber ducks were in Charlotte Lee's 2011 Guinness record collection?

Charlotte Lee's collection of 5,631 different rubber ducks was certified by Guinness World Records in April 2011 as the largest in the world.

Engelbert Kaempfer first described the mandarin duck for Europeans in his 1727 history of which country?

Kaempfer, a German physician who lived in Japan from 1690 to 1692, described the mandarin duck in his History of Japan (1727), saying its colours seemed unbelievable until seen alive.

While pintail hens quack, what sound does the northern pintail drake make?

The northern pintail drake gives a soft, flute-like whistle during courtship, while the hen quacks; despite its enormous range the species has no subspecies.

Penguin-upright Indian Runner ducks were first bred on the islands of which country?

Indian Runners originated in Indonesia, on Lombok, Bali and Java; their pelvic girdle sits nearer the tail than in other breeds, so they run upright rather than waddle, and cannot fly.

The Khaki Campbell's colour supposedly reminded its breeder of what?

Mrs Adele Campbell of Uley, Gloucestershire named the khaki colour after British army uniforms, then in the news from the Boer War; the Khaki Campbell was introduced in 1901.

The tiny, noisy Call duck is believed to have originated in which country?

The Call duck is thought to have originated in the Netherlands, where its piercing call was used to lure wild ducks into trap nets; the breed was in Britain by the 1850s.

The black, beetle-green Cayuga duck is named after an indigenous people of which US state?

The Cayuga duck takes its name from the Cayuga people and lake of New York's Finger Lakes region; it was the main American meat duck until the Pekin displaced it in the late 1800s.

Nine Pekin ancestors reached America in 1873 after a Shanghai voyage of how many days?

The voyage from Shanghai took 124 days; fifteen white ducks hatched in Peking were loaded, and six ducks and three drakes reached America alive in 1873 to found the American Pekin.

The extinct Labrador duck was last reliably sighted in Elmira in which year?

The last accepted Labrador duck record was a bird taken at Elmira, New York, on 12 December 1878; it was the first endemic North American bird to go extinct since 1500, with 55 specimens surviving.

The pink-headed duck, unseen since the 1950s, lived mainly in which country's northern wetlands?

The pink-headed duck lived in the wetlands of India's Gangetic plain and nearby Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar; the last confirmed wild record was in 1949, and its eggs were almost perfectly spherical.

Which introduced animal drove the Hawaiian Laysan duck down to twelve birds by 1912?

European rabbits, released on Laysan in 1903 by the guano company's manager, stripped the island's vegetation and left a dozen ducks by 1912; after the rabbits were eradicated in 1923 the population recovered to about 500 by the 1950s.

Patagonian Tachyeres birds thrash their wings like paddles to swim, earning what name?

Steamer ducks got their name because the thrashing wings and feet recall a paddle steamer; the three flightless species are aggressive enough to kill waterbirds far larger than themselves.

The torrent duck holds territories on fast-flowing rivers in which mountain range?

The torrent duck lives along fast, cold rivers of the Andes from Venezuela to Tierra del Fuego, nesting in waterside caves; introduced trout compete for its invertebrate food.

The bufflehead evolved its small size to fit the abandoned nest cavities of which bird?

Buffleheads nest almost exclusively in old northern flicker holes, and their small size is thought to have evolved to fit those cavities; they are also among the most punctual migrants.

The canvasback's species name valisineria honours which favourite winter food?

Valisineria is a misspelling of Vallisneria, the wild celery the duck dives for; Chesapeake Bay canvasbacks fattened on it were a prestige banquet dish in 19th-century America.

Which small Eurasian sawbill's drake is said to have a 'panda' or 'cracked ice' look?

The smew drake's white plumage with thin black lines earns it the 'cracked ice' or 'panda' description; it nests in old woodpecker holes, and the grey-and-chestnut females are called 'redheads'.

The whio, or blue duck, appears on which New Zealand banknote?

The $10 note carries the whio, a bird so harried by stoats that some populations are 70 percent male, since the females are killed on the nest.

The pink-eared duck, with black-and-white barred sides, is found in which country?

The pink-eared duck is endemic to Australia, roaming inland wetlands after rain; its pink ear spot shows only close up, so the old nickname 'zebra duck' fits its barred flanks better.

Which South American species is the only waterfowl that is an obligate brood parasite?

The black-headed duck of Argentina and neighbouring countries lays its eggs in the nests of coots and other birds; unlike cuckoo chicks, its ducklings leave within hours of hatching and harm no host young.

In cricket, what is it called when a batter is out to the very first ball they face?

A golden duck is out first ball; a plain 'duck' is short for 'duck's egg', the zero on the scorecard, used in 1866 when the Prince of Wales went back on nought.

Balut, a boiled fertilised duck egg eaten straight from the shell, is most famously the street food of which Southeast Asian country?

The Philippines made balut famous: makers usually incubate the eggs 14 to 18 days, and about 17 is said to be ideal. It is also sold in Cambodia and Vietnam.

Daffy made his debut in which 1937 Looney Tunes cartoon?

Daffy first appeared in Porky's Duck Hunt (April 1937), directed by Tex Avery, as a screwball duck who bounced away across the lake; Mel Blanc voiced him for 52 years.

Which comics artist created Scrooge McDuck in 1947?

Carl Barks created Scrooge McDuck for the 1947 story Christmas on Bear Mountain, naming him after Dickens's Ebenezer Scrooge; Don Rosa later chronicled him in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.

The original DuckTales, launched in syndication in 1987, ran for how many episodes?

DuckTales ran for 100 episodes over four seasons from 1987 to 1990; it was Disney's first animated series made for weekday syndication and paved the way for The Disney Afternoon.

Which DuckTales pilot character became Darkwing Duck's sidekick?

Launchpad McQuack flew for Scrooge before flying for Darkwing; the show grew out of two DuckTales episodes, one where Scrooge himself becomes a purple-caped vigilante, the Masked Mallard.

The Duck Dynasty family's Duck Commander business is based in which state?

Louisiana is home: the Robertsons' business in West Monroe makes the Duck Commander call, and patriarch Phil quit college football, where he started ahead of Terry Bradshaw, for duck season.

Oregon's right to use Donald as mascot came from a handshake between Walt Disney and whom?

Athletic director Leo Harris sealed the deal with Walt Disney in 1947 on a handshake, giving Oregon informal rights to a Donald-like mascot; the teams had been the Webfoots.

In the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup, Groucho becomes president of which fictional nation?

Groucho's Rufus T. Firefly becomes leader of Freedonia and goes to war with neighbouring Sylvania; Duck Soup (1933) was the brothers' last Paramount film and Zeppo's final appearance with them.

Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Ugly Duckling' was first published in which year?

'The Ugly Duckling' appeared in November 1843 in Andersen's collection New Fairy Tales; biographers read it as autobiography, the gawky boy from Odense mocked before finding fame.

Make Way for Ducklings follows a duck family settling in a public garden in which city?

Mr and Mrs Mallard raise their brood in Boston's Public Garden; Nancy Schon's bronze ducklings stand there, and a copy was given to Moscow in 1991 during the START treaty ceremonies.

Jemima Puddle-Duck, talked into nesting at a gentleman fox's house, was created by whom?

Beatrix Potter published The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck in 1908, a year after Jemima first appeared as a minor character in The Tale of Tom Kitten.

Privacy search engine DuckDuckGo was founded in 2008 by whom?

Gabriel Weinberg launched DuckDuckGo in September 2008 as a one-man project in Pennsylvania; the name nods to the playground game duck, duck, goose.

Which cartoon character teaches kids to 'duck and cover' in the 1952 civil defense film?

Bert the Turtle ducks into his shell in Duck and Cover (1952), funded by the Federal Civil Defense Administration; the film entered the National Film Registry in 2004.

'Lame duck' first meant a debt-defaulting member of which 1700s institution?

The term began on the London Stock Exchange for a broker who could not pay his debts; Horace Walpole asked a friend in 1761 whether he knew 'what a Bull and a Bear and Lame Duck are'.

Who designed the first Federal Duck Stamp in 1934, at FDR's request?

Jay Norwood 'Ding' Darling, a Pulitzer-winning cartoonist then heading the Bureau of Biological Survey, drew the first Duck Stamp in 1934; hunters must buy one before shooting waterfowl.

The wetland conservation group Ducks Unlimited was incorporated in which year?

Ducks Unlimited was incorporated in January 1937 by Joseph Knapp and other sportsmen alarmed by Dust Bowl losses of waterfowl; it has since conserved more than 15 million acres of habitat.

In The Mighty Ducks (1992), Emilio Estevez plays a lawyer coaching kids in which city?

Gordon Bombay, a Minneapolis lawyer sentenced to community service after a drunk-driving arrest, coaches the District 5 pee-wee team that becomes the Ducks.

Which team did the Ducks beat in 2007 to become the first California Stanley Cup champion?

Anaheim beat the Ottawa Senators in five games, clinching 6-2 at Honda Center on 6 June 2007, the first Stanley Cup for a California team.

Whose book Learning from Las Vegas made Long Island's Big Duck famous?

Robert Venturi, with Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, used the 1931 Big Duck in Learning from Las Vegas (1972) to define a 'duck', a building whose shape announces its function.

Bombay duck, a pungent dried delicacy of Anglo-Indian cooking, is actually what?

Bombay duck is the lizardfish Harpadon nehereus, caught off India's west coast; it is salted and sun-dried, then fried and crumbled over curries as a pungent condiment.

Cotton duck, the heavy canvas fabric, takes its name from a word in which language?

Duck comes from the Dutch doek, meaning cloth; duck canvas is woven more tightly than plain canvas and turns up in sneakers, tents and sandbags.

Which dabbling duck sweeps a bill longer than its head from side to side while feeding?

The northern shoveler's bill is longer than its head and edged with comb-like lamellae that sieve tiny invertebrates as the bird sweeps it side to side.

What is the smallest dabbling duck in North America?

The green-winged teal, at about 350 grams, is North America's smallest dabbling duck; the drake shows a chestnut head with a green eye patch, and some authorities split it from the Eurasian teal.

At which Memphis hotel do ducks ride the elevator down for an 11 a.m. red-carpet march?

The Peabody Hotel's ducks have marched to the lobby fountain since 1933; bellman Edward Pembroke, a former circus trainer, became Duckmaster in 1940 and held the job until 1991.

The WWII amphibious truck nicknamed the 'Duck' had what official GMC designation?

DUKW was just GMC's model code, which the troops read as 'Duck'; over 21,000 were built, and survivors now ferry tourists on 'duck tours' of cities.

Which Star Wars creator was executive producer of the notorious 1986 flop Howard the Duck?

George Lucas executive-produced Howard the Duck (1986) through Lucasfilm; Lea Thompson landed the lead after Back to the Future, and Howard crash-lands in Cleveland, Ohio.

Count Duckula became a vegetarian vampire because his ritual used what instead of blood?

Nanny's resurrection ritual used tomato ketchup instead of blood, producing a vegetarian vampire; the Cosgrove Hall show, spun off from Danger Mouse, ran 65 episodes from 1988 with David Jason as the count.

Psyduck, the duck-like Pokemon perpetually stunned by a headache, belongs to which type?

Psyduck is a pure Water-type despite its name; when its headache gets bad enough it unleashes psychic powers, and in the anime Misty's Psyduck kept popping out of its ball uninvited.

Which comedian voiced the Aflac duck until he was fired in 2011 over tsunami jokes?

Gilbert Gottfried voiced the Aflac duck from 2000 until March 2011, when tweets joking about the Japanese tsunami got him fired; Daniel McKeague, a TV ad sales manager, won the open audition to replace him.

The name 'rubber duck debugging' comes from an anecdote in which programming book?

The Pragmatic Programmer (1999) by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas tells of a developer who explained his code line by line to a rubber duck; the technique took the duck's name.

In which US state do kids play 'duck, duck, gray duck' instead of 'duck, duck, goose'?

Minnesota kids play 'duck, duck, gray duck'; the picker can tease with 'green duck, purple duck, grape duck' before finally shouting 'gray duck!'

The harlequin duck is named for a colourful character from which theatre tradition?

Harlequin was the motley-clad clown of Italian commedia dell'arte; the species name histrionicus comes from the Latin for actor, and other names include painted duck and totem pole duck.

The eider genus name Somateria combines Greek words meaning what?

Somateria joins Greek soma, body, and erion, wool, giving 'woolly body' for the famously thick down; the king eider's epithet spectabilis is Latin for 'worth seeing'.

Long-tailed ducks usually feed near the surface but can dive to about what depth?

Long-tailed ducks can dive to about 60 metres (200 feet), deeper than any other duck, taking molluscs and crustaceans; they gather in huge winter flocks on the Great Lakes and coasts.

Duck confit, salt-cured and slowly cooked in its own fat, is a specialty of which region?

Confit de canard is the signature dish of Gascony in south-west France; the legs are cured in salt, cooked slowly in their own fat and used in cassoulet, while the neck goes into garbure soup.

Ripper, an Australian musk duck recorded in 1987, appeared to mimic which human phrase?

Ripper, hand-reared at Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve near Canberra, repeated 'you bloody fool', probably learned from a keeper; the 1987 recordings were published in 2021 as rare evidence of vocal learning in a duck.

In a duck decoy, a pond with tapering net-covered ditches, what did operators use to tempt curious wild ducks up the 'pipes'?

A dog did the luring: ducks followed the trotting animal up the tapering net tunnel, sometimes helped by scattered feed. 'Decoy' comes from Dutch eendenkooi, duck-cage.

Which sculptor patented the floating rubber duck in 1949, selling more than 50 million?

Russian-American sculptor Peter Ganine patented a floating rubber duck in 1949 and sold more than 50 million; earlier rubber ducks were solid chew toys, and the duck entered the Toy Hall of Fame in 2013.

What is the heaviest species in the genus Anas?

The American black duck, at up to 1.6 kg, is the heaviest member of Anas; it hybridises so freely with the mallard that the two can be hard to separate in the field.

The oil a duck spreads over its feathers comes from a gland located where on its body?

The uropygial or preen gland sits at the base of the tail; strongly developed in waterbirds, it secretes waxy esters through a nipple-like papilla that the duck spreads with its bill.

Shot pellets of which metal are banned for waterfowl hunting in the US, Canada and EU?

Lead shot was banned for US waterfowl hunting nationwide in 1991 and later in Canada and the EU, because ducks feeding on lake bottoms swallowed spent pellets and died of lead poisoning.

In Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, Daffy and Marvin fight on Planet X over what element?

Illudium Phosdex, 'the shaving cream atom', is the prize on Planet X; Chuck Jones directed the 1953 short and Mel Blanc voiced Daffy, Porky and Marvin.