Steamer Ducks
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Tachyeres (Steamer Ducks) is a genus of ducks in the bird family Anatidae. All of the four species occur in South America, and all except T. patachonicus are flightless; even this one species capable of flight rarely takes to the air.
They are usually placed in the shelduck subfamily Tadorninae. However, mtDNA sequence analyses of the cytochrome b and NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 genes (Johnson & Sorenson, 1999) indicate that Tachyeres rather belongs into a distinct clade of aberrant South American dabbling ducks, which also includes the Brazilian, the Crested, and the Bronze-winged Ducks.
There are four species:
- Flying Steamer Duck Tachyeres patachonicus : The Flying Steamer Duck is the most widespread steamer duck, resident in southern Chile and Argentina, Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands. Its plumage is very similar to the other three steamer ducks. It is the only steamer duck which can fly, and the only one to occur on inland fresh waters.
- Magellanic Flightless Steamer Duck Tachyeres pteneres : The Magellanic Flightless Steamer Duck is a flightless duck from South America. It belongs to the steamer duck genus Tachyeres.
- White-headed Flightless Steamer Duck Tachyeres leucocephalus : The White-headed Flightless Steamer Duck or Chubut Steamer Duck is endemic to Argentina. It is the most recently recognized species of steamer duck, being described only in 1981. This is due to the
fact that it is only found along a rather small and sparsely populated stretch of coast around the Golfo San Jorge in southern Chubut and northern Santa Cruz Provinces, and that steamer ducks in general look fairly similar in plumage. - Falkland Flightless Steamer Duck Tachyeres brachypterus : The Falkland Steamerduck is a duck native to the Falkland Islands in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It is one of only two bird species to be endemic to the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas in Spanish), the other being Cobb's Wren. The Falkland Steamerduck's wings are very short (hence the scientific name: brachy = "short", and pteron = "wing"), and it is incapable of flight. The plumage of the Falkland Steamerduck is mostly dark grey, but with a white stripe behind the eye. It is very difficult to distinguish from the Flying Steamer Duck in the field since they occupy the same habitat and, although the Flying Steamer Duck can fly, it rarely does.
The White-headed Flightless Steamer Duck was only described in 1981.
(Source: Wikipedia.org)
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