Review of Madagascar’s wildfowl 7
©Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust
Wildfowl
(2013) 63: 5–23
Discovery
Madagascar’s three endemic species (Fig.
1a,b,c) were among the last four species of
ducks in Africa to be described, with
Madagascar Pochard being the last (Table 1).
The presentation to science of these ducks
followed a traditional pattern with all – the
Madagascar Teal (1860), Meller’s Duck
(1865), Madagascar Pochard (1894) and the
subspecies of White-backed Duck (1897;
Fig. 1d) – described in European or North
American Museums from specimens sent
back by travellers to the island (see species
accounts in Kear 2005 for citations).
Following their initial description, the
ducks were only occasionally reported
thereafter during the late 19th and early 20th
Century, typically in travellers’ notes (see
references in Dee 1986), and close
inspection of some of these suggests that
more recent reviewers and translators
sometimes misidentified the species
being described. Only Rand’s (1936) and
Delacour’s (1932a, b) reports of the Franco-
Anglo-American expedition to Madagascar
in 1929–1931 give any real details of the
species observed. Even then the Madagascar
Teal was not seen by most expedition
members, though two museum specimens
were collected, acquired from villagers. Cecil
Webb, a member of the Franco-Anglo-
American expedition, collected live
specimens (of Madagascar White-backed
Duck, Meller’s Duck and Madagascar
Pochard) at Lake Alaotra in 1926, and
returned to collect further ducks at the same
site in 1935 (Webb 1936, 1953). However,
beyond basic descriptions of habitat and
perceived commonness Webb made few
notes on the birds themselves.
There was little recognition of the species’
status and of threats to the birds until late in
the 20th Century. Johnsgard (1978: page 223)
considered that it was likely that Meller’s
Duck, as a mallard, “will be able to survive
indefinitely”, while Soothill & Whitehead
(1978: page 217) stated that the Madagascar
Pochard was “common” nearly 20 years after
we now know that the last bird was reliably
seen and the population crashed (Young &
Kear 2006); bizarrely, Soothill & Whitehead
(1978) omitted
A. bernieri
altogether! While
the former species seem poorly known, the
enigmatic Madagascar Teal was almost
completely lost to science and, not seen for
many years, was considered close to
extinction until “rediscovery” in 1969
(Salvan 1970; Andriamampianina 1976), an
event that signalled a renewed interest in the
endemic ducks of this island. It is only
recently that the Teal has been represented in
book plates without a dark cap – a feature
unknown in this species and depicted
correctly in Philips (1923: Plate 36) before
dark shading was added (possibly artistically)
by Peter Scott in Delacour (1952: Plate VI),
then becoming a distinct cap coloration in
Madge & Burn (1988: Plate 28) and Del
Hoyo
et al.
(1992: Plate 45) who presumably
followed Madge & Burn.
With no idea of numbers until recently, the
Madagascar Teal has always been considered
rare and given the International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) status of
“Vulnerable” in the first Red Data Book
(King 1978–1979) becoming, with no further
information, “Endangered” in 1994 (Collar
et
al.
1994; BirdLife International 2000) (Table
2). Meller’s Duck, although never surveyed
but with large numbers at a few well-visited
