Hartlaub's duck

The Hartlaub's duck (Pteronetta hartlaubii) is a dark chestnut-coloured duck of African forests. Formerly included in the paraphyletic "perching duck" assemblage, it was later moved to the dabbling duck assemblage. However, it is fairly distinct from the "typical" dabbling ducks, and is placed in the monotypic genus Pteronetta to reflect this.

Analysis of mtDNA sequences of the cytochrome b and NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 genes suggests that it belongs into a very distinct clade—possibly a subfamily of its own—together with the blue-winged goose, another African species of waterfowl with uncertain affinities.

Hartlaub's duck is resident in equatorial West and Central Africa, from Guinea and Sierra Leone east through Nigeria to South Sudan, and south to Gabon, Congo and Zaire.

This bird is named after the German naturalist Gustav Hartlaub.

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Gustav Hartlaub

Karel Johan Gustav Hartlaub (8 November 1814 – 29 November 1900) was a German physician and ornithologist.

Hartlaub was born in Bremen, and studied at Bonn and Berlin before graduating in medicine at Göttingen. In 1840, he began to study and collect exotic birds, which he donated to the Bremen Natural History Museum. He described some of these species for the first time. In 1852, he set up a new journal with Jean Cabanis, the Journal für Ornithologie. He wrote with Otto Finsch, Beitrag zur Fauna Centralpolynesiens: Ornithologie der Viti-, Samoa und Tonga- Inseln. Halle, H. Schmidt. This 1867 work which has handcoloured lithographs was based on bird specimens collected by Eduard Heinrich Graeffe for Museum Godeffroy. A number of birds were named for him, including Hartlaub's bustard, Hartlaub's duck, and Hartlaub's gull.

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