Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Anseriformes > Anatidae > Oxyura > Oxyura australis

Oxyura australis (Blue-billed Duck)

Wikipedia Abstract

The blue-billed duck (Oxyura australis) is a small Australian stiff-tailed duck, with both the male and female growing to a length of 40 cm (16 in). The male has a slate-blue bill which changes to bright-blue during the breeding season, hence the duck’s common name. The male has deep chestnut plumage during breeding season, reverting to a dark grey. The female retains black plumage with brown tips all year round. The duck is endemic to Australia's temperate regions, inhabiting natural inland wetlands and also artificial wetlands, such as sewage ponds, in large numbers. It can be difficult to observe due to its cryptic nature during its breeding season through autumn and winter. The male duck exhibits a complex mating ritual. The blue-billed duck is omnivorous, with a preference for small a
View Wikipedia Record: Oxyura australis

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
2
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
28
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 5.58894
EDGE Score: 2.57854
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  1.803 lbs (818 g)
Birth Weight [2]  90 grams
Female Weight [4]  1.759 lbs (798 g)
Diet [3]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Granivore, Herbivore
Diet - Invertibrates [3]  40 %
Diet - Plants [3]  30 %
Diet - Seeds [3]  30 %
Forages - Water Surface [3]  20 %
Forages - Underwater [3]  80 %
Clutch Size [6]  6
Clutches / Year [1]  1
Egg Length [1]  2.598 inches (66 mm)
Egg Width [1]  1.89 inches (48 mm)
Incubation [5]  25 days
Mating Display [2]  Ground and non-acrobatic aerial display
Mating System [2]  Monogamy
Maximum Longevity [7]  16 years
Snout to Vent Length [1]  16 inches (40 cm)
Wing Span [5]  24 inches (.6 m)

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Southwest Australia Australia No

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Anatoecus icterodes[8]
Streptocara crassicauda[9]

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 2Terje Lislevand, Jordi Figuerola, and Tamás Székely. 2007. Avian body sizes in relation to fecundity, mating system, display behavior, and resource sharing. Ecology 88:1605
♦ 3Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 4Marchant, S.; Higgins, PJ (eds.) 1990. The handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic birds, Vol. 1., ratites to ducks. Oxford University Press, Melbourne
♦ 5del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
♦ 6Jetz W, Sekercioglu CH, Böhning-Gaese K (2008) The Worldwide Variation in Avian Clutch Size across Species and Space PLoS Biol 6(12): e303. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060303
♦ 7de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 8Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 9Species Interactions of Australia Database, Atlas of Living Australia, Version ala-csv-2012-11-19
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0