Game encyclopaedia
Mallard
Anas platyrhynchos (Linnaeus, 1758). The most widespread dabbling duck of the Northern Hemisphere, also called the "wild duck" in hunting parlance. The breeding male sports a green head and a white collar, but spends the summer in eclipse plumage; it is the ancestor of most domestic ducks.
Not to be confused with the other dabbling ducks of the genus Anas, such as the gadwall (Mareca strepera) or the northern pintail (Anas acuta): in the breeding mallard, the male is recognisable by its metallic green head, its white collar and its yellow bill. The domestic form of the species, Anas platyrhynchos domesticus, encompasses most farmyard duck breeds; it is distinct from the Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata), domesticated separately in the Americas. For our farmed birds, see our ducks.
Description and sexual dimorphism
The mallard is a medium-sized dabbling duck, 50 to 65 cm long with a wingspan of 80 to 100 cm and a mass of the order of 0.85 to 1.5 kg.[2][9] The species shows marked sexual dimorphism in the breeding season. The male — the "drake" of hunting parlance — is immediately recognisable by its head and neck of iridescent metallic green, set off from the maroon-brown breast by a thin white collar; the bill is yellowish green, the body finely vermiculated grey, and two small black tail feathers curl up into a distinctive curl.[2][9] The female, the "hen", is a mottled buff brown that camouflages her on the nest, with an orange bill blotched with dark.[2][9] Both sexes share one decisive feature, visible in flight as at rest: the wing mirror, or speculum, a band of brilliant blue-violet feathers bordered by two white edges on the rear of the wing.[2][9] It is this white-bordered speculum that distinguishes the mallard from the other dabbling ducks of the genus Anas.
Taxonomy and etymology
The species was described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, in the tenth edition of the Systema Naturae, under the name Anas platyrhynchos — a combination that remains the valid name and the protonym, without parentheses around the author since the species has never changed genus.[3][5] The genus name Anas is the Latin word for "duck"; the epithet platyrhynchos comes from the Greek platús, "broad, flat", and rhúnkhos, "bill": literally "broad-billed".[3][5] The mallard belongs to the order Anseriformes and the family Anatidae, which brings together ducks, geese and swans; it is the type species of the genus Anas, that of the dabbling or "surface-feeding" ducks.[3][4] Its French name is recent: "colvert", formed from "col" (a variant of "cou", neck) and "vert" (green), appears in dictionaries only in the middle of the 19th century — around 1866 — in allusion to the green head of the male; before that people spoke mostly of the "wild duck", the male remaining the "drake".[6][16] In hunting language, the mallard has indeed remained "the wild duck" par excellence.[16]
Breeding plumage, eclipse plumage and moult
The mallard's plumage cycle is spectacular. From mid-autumn to spring, the male wears his breeding plumage — green head, white collar — which serves to court females and to form pairs as early as winter.[7][9] But as soon as breeding ends, in summer, he exchanges it for a much duller "eclipse plumage", brown and mottled, which makes him almost identical to the female and camouflages him at a time when he is vulnerable.[7][9] For this body moult is accompanied by an entirely distinctive moult of the flight feathers: unlike most birds, which replace their remiges one by one and always retain the ability to fly, the Anatidae — ducks, geese and swans — lose them all at once.[8] The mallard then becomes completely unable to fly for about three to four weeks, the time it takes the wing feathers to regrow; during this so-called eclipse period, it stays hidden in the dense vegetation of the marshes and escapes by swimming.[7][8] The males often leave the females to moult in groups on safe bodies of water. The breeding plumage is then restored in autumn, ahead of the mating season.[7][9]
Simultaneous moult of the remiges
Like all Anatidae, the mallard loses all its flight feathers at once, rather than one by one.[8]
Distribution and partial migration
The mallard is one of the most widely distributed waterbirds on the planet: its breeding range covers almost the whole Northern Hemisphere — a so-called Holarctic distribution — from Iceland and Europe across temperate Asia, and from Alaska to the rest of North America.[1][15] It has also been introduced to Australia, New Zealand and many islands.[1] The species is a partial migrant: the northernmost populations, driven out by frost, move south in winter — as far as North Africa, the Near East, India or southern China — while those of temperate regions, such as much of Western Europe, are largely sedentary.[10][14] In France, therefore, the resident breeding mallards are joined in winter by many wintering birds coming from northern and eastern Europe.[4][14] This flexibility — the ability to stay put where the water remains open, and to migrate where it freezes — is one of the traits that explain the species' success and abundance.[10][14]
Habitat and feeding
The mallard frequents almost all fresh or brackish wetlands with slow-moving water: ponds, marshes, lakes, sluggish rivers, pools, ditches, and even city waters, where it has adapted perfectly to human presence.[2][4] It is a dabbling, or "surface-feeding", duck: it feeds mostly at the surface and with the body partly submerged, head and forequarters underwater and hindquarters tipped up towards the sky — the characteristic "upending" — without diving completely.[2][10] Its diet is frankly omnivorous and opportunistic: seeds, aquatic plants, acorns, agricultural grain, but also insects, molluscs, worms, small crustaceans, tadpoles and fry, the animal share becoming more important in the laying female and the growing ducklings.[2][10] This lack of dietary specialisation, combined with its tolerance of humans and its migratory flexibility, makes the mallard one of the most adaptable and abundant ducks in the world.[1][10]
Reproduction and nesting
Pairs form as early as autumn and winter, thanks to displays in which the males in breeding plumage compete.[9][10] The female builds the nest alone, most often on the ground, in dense vegetation at the water's edge, sometimes further away or even up high; it is a simple hollow that she lines with grass and then, as laying progresses, with thick down plucked from her own breast.[4][9] The clutch generally numbers 8 to 13 eggs, exceptionally more, of a greenish white.[4][9] Incubation, which the female carries out alone, lasts about 27 to 28 days; during this time the male gradually loses interest in the brood and leaves to moult.[9][10] As in most dabbling ducks, all the eggs hatch within a day or two, which allows the hen to lead her whole brood to the water at once.[9][10]
Precocial, nidifugous ducklings
Mallard ducklings are nidifugous and precocial: covered in yellow and brown down, with their eyes open, they leave the nest and follow their mother to the water within the first hours after hatching.[9][10] Able to swim and feed themselves almost at once — chiefly on protein-rich invertebrates — they nonetheless remain under the guidance and watch of the hen, who leads them and still broods them at night and in bad weather.[9][10] They take their first flight at around 50 to 60 days, once the flight feathers have developed.[9][10] This early development contrasts with that of altricial birds, born naked and blind in the nest; it is an adaptation to life on the water, where immediate mobility offers protection from predators.[10] Duckling mortality nevertheless remains high, which is offset by the size of the clutches.[4][10]
Domestic forms and hybridisation
The mallard is the ancestor of nearly all domestic duck breeds, grouped together under the name Anas platyrhynchos domesticus — from the heavy Pekin duck, selected for meat, to the upright, egg-laying Indian Runner, by way of the Rouen duck or the farmyard mallard.[11][12] Domesticated long ago in Eurasia, it is among the very first birds raised by humans.[11] The great exception is the Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata), derived from a different American species and domesticated separately in South America; crossing a Muscovy duck with a female mallard produces the mule duck, a sterile hybrid widely raised for its meat and for foie gras.[12] The mallard also hybridises very readily with other wild species of the genus Anas and with domestic ducks gone feral, producing intermediate individuals that are often puzzling.[11][12] This strong propensity to hybridise, combined with the mass releases of farmed birds, raises concerns of "genetic pollution" of wild populations.[11][13]
Waterfowl and hunting releases
The mallard is the most hunted waterfowl in France, where it makes up on its own the bulk of the "wild duck" bag; nationally, more than a million mallards are taken each season.[13] It is hunted notably from the hide or by walking up at the edge of marshes and ponds. To sustain this pressure and to restock territories, the species is the object of substantial releases of captive-reared birds: in Europe, several million farmed mallards are released each year.[13] These releases feed precisely the debate on hybridisation and the "genetic pollution" of truly wild mallards, and on the precautions to take in husbandry and in the choice of strains.[11][13] In conservation terms, the species remains classified as Least Concern (LC) by the IUCN, with vast and stable global numbers — a status very different from that of the European rabbit, a game species Endangered in its native range.[1]
At GIBIS
GIBIS is a game farm established in Chatte, Isère, since 1951. The mallard is reared there for the restocking of territories and for hunting: the production is presented on the our ducks page, the husbandry on the our farm page, and the principles of population-reinforcement operations on the restocking page. This encyclopaedic article remains independent of those pages: it documents the wild species, its biology and its status, with no commercial aim.
A family farm since 1951
Production of feathered and small game in Chatte, Isère.
Mallard reared
Animals intended for restocking and hunting: see the our ducks page.
Restocking
Population-reinforcement operations are detailed on the restocking page.
References
- ↑BirdLife International, "*Anas platyrhynchos*" (2019 assessment), *The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species* 2019: e.T22680186A86020946 — category: Least Concern (LC), iucnredlist.org, accessed 2026.
- ↑Wikipedia / Wikipédia contributors, "Mallard" and "Canard colvert", *Wikipedia* / *Wikipédia* — general synthesis (morphology, distribution, diet, behaviour), corroborated by the primary sources below.
- ↑ITIS (Integrated Taxonomic Information System), *Report: Anas platyrhynchos* Linnaeus, 1758 — classification and authority, itis.gov, accessed 2026.
- ↑MNHN & OFB, Inventaire national du patrimoine naturel (INPN), *Anas platyrhynchos* Linnaeus, 1758 record, inpn.mnhn.fr, accessed 2026.
- ↑Linnaeus C., *Systema Naturae*, 10th ed., Stockholm, 1758 — original description under *Anas platyrhynchos*; etymology of *platyrhynchos* (Greek "broad-billed").
- ↑"Colvert", CNRTL, *Trésor de la langue française informatisé*, and *Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle* (Larousse) — formed from "col" and "vert", attested around 1866, accessed 2026.
- ↑Drilling N., Titman R. & McKinney F., "Mallard (*Anas platyrhynchos*), Plumages, Molts, and Appearance", *Birds of the World*, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, birdsoftheworld.org — breeding plumage, eclipse plumage and moult timing, accessed 2026.
- ↑Hohman W. L., Ankney C. D. & Gordon D. H., "Wing molt and the flightless period in dabbling ducks", and Fox A. D. et al. on the simultaneous moult of the remiges in the Anatidae — flightless period of 3 to 4 weeks, ornithology journals, accessed 2026.
- ↑Cramp S. & Simmons K. E. L. (eds.), *Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (The Birds of the Western Palearctic)*, vol. I, Oxford University Press, 1977 — biometrics, breeding biology and moult of the mallard.
- ↑del Hoyo J., Elliott A. & Sargatal J. (eds.), *Handbook of the Birds of the World*, vol. 1 (Anseriformes), Lynx Edicions, Barcelona, 1992 — habitat, dabbling feeding, migration and reproduction.
- ↑Zhou Z. et al., "An intercross population study reveals genes associated with body size and plumage color in ducks", and work on the origin of domestic ducks — the mallard, ancestor of most breeds (*Anas platyrhynchos domesticus*) and hybridisation, peer-reviewed journals, accessed 2026.
- ↑Wikipedia contributors, "Domestic duck", "Domestic Muscovy duck" and "Mulard", *Wikipedia* — Muscovy duck (*Cairina moschata*), separate domestication and mule duck, corroborated by the poultry literature, accessed 2026.
- ↑Office français de la biodiversité (OFB) and Fédération nationale des chasseurs, "Canard colvert (*Anas platyrhynchos*)" record — waterfowl, harvests, releases of farmed mallards and genetic pollution, ofb.gouv.fr, accessed 2026.
- ↑Guillemain M. & Elmberg J., *The Mallard: Biology and Management*, together with French ringing studies (OMPO/OFB) — partial migration and wintering of the mallard in France, accessed 2026.
- ↑Drilling N., Titman R. & McKinney F., "Mallard (*Anas platyrhynchos*), Movements and Migration", *Birds of the World*, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, birdsoftheworld.org — Holarctic distribution and partial-migrant status, accessed 2026.
- ↑Cabard P. & Chauvet B., *L'étymologie des noms d'oiseaux*, and *Noms français des oiseaux du monde* (Université de Sherbrooke) — "malart" for the male and "canard sauvage" in hunting parlance, accessed 2026.
See also
Gallery
See also
A question about the mallard?
This article is part of GIBIS's game encyclopaedia, a breeder in Chatte (Isère) since 1951. For a question about the species or about our animals, the team answers by telephone or e-mail.