Salvadori's Teal
The Salvadori's Teal or Salvadori's Duck (Salvadorina waigiuensis) is a species of bird native to New Guinea. It is placed in the monotypic genus Salvadorina.
Initially, it was believed to belong to the "perching ducks", a paraphyletic assemblage of species which generally fell between dabbling ducks and shelducks. With the breaking-up of the "perching ducks", it was rather provisionally placed in the dabbling duck genus Anas. It was then reinstated in its own genus and moved to the shelduck subfamily Tadorninae, which also contains the Torrent Duck and Blue Duck which convergently have evolved adaptations to mountain stream habitat. All or some of these species may actually be surviving lineages of an ancient Gondwanan radiation of waterfowl (Sraml et al. 1996).
Initially, it was believed to belong to the "perching ducks", a paraphyletic assemblage of species which generally fell between dabbling ducks and shelducks. With the breaking-up of the "perching ducks", it was rather provisionally placed in the dabbling duck genus Anas. It was then reinstated in its own genus and moved to the shelduck subfamily Tadorninae, which also contains the Torrent Duck and Blue Duck which convergently have evolved adaptations to mountain stream habitat. All or some of these species may actually be surviving lineages of an ancient Gondwanan radiation of waterfowl (Sraml et al. 1996).
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| Salvadori's Teal |
Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toxostoma/3131729829/
