Ducks are famous poultry animals that raise mostly as livestock; but, however, there’s so many people who raise them as pet too. Ducks has so many breeds varieties, include: egg-laying ducks, wood ducks, Mallard and Rouen ducks, Muscovy ducks, and the duck that become our main topic today: Hawaiian duck. The nursery of the duck was followed basic rules of animals’ ownership: giving healthy diets and cleanliness routine every day. Like other animals, if we put ducks under improper environment and diets, this creature would catching illness.
The most fun thing about feeding duck is you could try to make your own duck feed. You can find recipes from the internet easily from another duck’ owners. Every place has its own unique animals that you couldn’t found in another place. The animals also developed certain features and skills that support them living in that particular habitat. Therefore, we would discuss about original species of Hawaii’ duck species in today’ article: getting closest with Hawaiian duck: a charismatic duck from Koloa Hawaii.
Hawaiian Duck
Hawaiian duck or the native Hawaiian people named this duck koloa maoli which mean “native duck” (but, most of the time Hawaiian people just called them koloa); this bird’ species is become an endemic in most of the Hawaii’ island. Surprisingly, Hawaiian duck is a close allied of with another famous species duck (which I already mentioned previously) called mallard associated with taxonomic. As one of the member of duck from genus Anas, just like mallard, koloa has the ability of produce viable offspring and interbreed.
To these days, authorities has included koloa within mallard complex’ distinct species. Reviled that this species was the offspring of mallard and Laysan duck. Unfortunately, this species was already face the threat of extinction which had been included by IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Reportedly, koloa numbers has been decreasing every single year.
Hawaiian Duck’ Characteristics
Getting closest with Hawaiian duck: a charismatic duck from koloa Hawaii mean to know exactly how this duck look alike. Both appearances of male and female koloa are colored in mottled brown. Associated with the body size, the males are generally bigger than the female ones. Speculum feathers in both males and females was colored in blue to green with white boarded on the two sides; although they had similar appearances like the mallard, apparently both species have different color of tail.
The mallard was known having beautiful black-and-white tail, but koloa’ tail was fully painted with black. The bill color in male koloa is olive green and in female it colors with dull orange; the legs and feet on both side was painted in to yellow-orange to fully orange. In overall looks, generally female koloa exhibited in lighter-colored than male koloa which generally has plainer back feathers.
Furthermore, the male of koloa size is approximate about 48 to 50 cm or about 19 to 19.5 inches in length, and the weight reach about 604 grams or about 21.3 ounces. The female measurement is about 40 to 43 cm or about 15.5 to 17 inches in length, and the weight reach about 460 grams or about 16 ounces. So, with this total measurement, we could say that Hawaiian ducks are smaller about 20 to 30 percent than mallard ducks.
Vocalization and Diet of Hawaiian Duck
Vocalization of Hawaiian ducks was pretty similar to mallard ducks, but of course there are certain differences between both of them. Koloa would sound softer and they were quieter than the mallard, it means that koloa quacks less frequent than mallard. For the diet, generally koloa prefer to eat freshwater vegetation, aquatic invertebrates, some insects, and then mollusks. Moreover, this ducks was known with their wide range of appetite, included: green algae, snails, rice, insect larvae, grass seeds, earthworms, mosquito fish, tadpoles, mosquito larvae, and crayfish.
Hawaiian Duck’ Behavior
Hawaiian ducks likely are private individuals; they often see roam in a pair than in a large number of group, and this ducks was also known as wary bird. This species was kept their secretive and apparently they rarely seen make any contact with another species of animals. Hawaiian people often said that this ducks can only get wet if gods say it can, which mean the duck would only get wet if gods allow it to get wet. This words apparently associated with hunting habit of koloa around the water source.