Spatula (bird)

This article is about the bird. For other uses, see Spatula (disambiguation).

Spatula is a genus or subgenus of ducks in the family Anatidae that includes the shovelers, garganey, and several species of American teals.

Spatula
Male northern shoveler
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Anseriformes
Family:	Anatidae
Tribe:	Anatini
Genus:	Spatula Boie, F, 1822
Type species
Anas clypeata (now Spatula clypeata) Linnaeus, 1758
Synonyms
Anas (Pterocyanea) Bonaparte 1841[1] Querquedula Stephens 1824 Querquedula Oken 1817 nomen nudum Rhynchaspis Stephens 1824 Rhynchoplatus Berthold 1827 Cyanopterus Bonaparte1838 non Haliday 1835 Clypeata Lesson 1828 Anas (Micronetta) Roberts 1922 Adelonetta Heine & Reichenow 1890 Punanetta Bonaparte 1856 Fugaluna Trennins 1858

Taxonomy

The species now placed in this genus were formerly placed in the genus Anas. A molecular phylogenetic study comparing mitochondrial DNA sequences published in 2009 found that the genus Anas, as then defined, was non-monophyletic.^[2] Based on this published phylogeny, the genus Anas was split into four monophyletic genera with 10 species moved into the resurrected genus Spatula.^[3]

The genus Spatula had originally been proposed by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie in 1822. The type species is the northern shoveler.^[4][5] The name Spatula is the Latin word for "spoon", from which the English word "spatula" also originates.^[6]

Extant species

The genus contains 10 species:^[3]

Genus Spatula – Boie, F, 1822 – ten species

Common name	Scientific name and subspecies	Range	Size and ecology	IUCN status and estimated population
Garganey Male Female	Spatula querquedula (Linnaeus, 1758)	Europe and western Asia	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Blue-billed teal	Spatula hottentota (Eyton, 1838)	eastern and southern Africa, from Sudan and Ethiopia west to Niger and Nigeria and south to South Africa and Namibia	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Puna teal	Spatula puna (Tschudi, 1844)	the Andes of Peru, western Bolivia, northern Chile and extreme northwestern Argentina	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Silver teal	Spatula versicolor (Vieillot, 1816) Two subspecies S. v. versicolor (Vieillot, 1816) S. v. fretensis (King, 1831))	southern Bolivia, southern Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and the Falkland Islands	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Red shoveler Male Female	Spatula platalea (Vieillot, 1816)	Tierra del Fuego northwards to Chile and most parts of Argentina, as well as the Falkland Islands and small isolated breeding populations in southern Peru	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Cinnamon teal Male Female	Spatula cyanoptera (Vieillot, 1816) Four subspecies Spatula cyanoptera septentrionalium (Oberholser, 1906) Spatula cyanoptera tropica (Snyder & Lumsden, 1951) Spatula cyanoptera borreroi (Snyder & Lumsden, 1951) Spatula cyanoptera orinoma (Snyder & Lumsden, 1951) Spatula cyanoptera cyanoptera (Vieillot, 1816)	South America, western United States and extreme southwestern Canada; a rare visitor to the East Coast of the United States	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Blue-winged teal Male Female	Spatula discors (Linnaeus, 1766)	North America, where it breeds from southern Alaska to Nova Scotia and south to northern Texas	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Cape shoveler Male Female	Spatula smithii Hartert, 1891	South Africa, uncommon further north in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, southern Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique and Zambia	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Australasian shoveler Male Female	Spatula rhynchotis (Latham, 1801) Two subspecies S. r. rhynchotis(Latham, 1801) S. r. variegata(Gould, 1856)	Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Northern shoveler Male Female	Spatula clypeata (Linnaeus, 1758)	northern areas of Europe and Asia and across most of North America	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC

Phylogeny

Cladogram based on the analysis of Gonzalez and colleagues published in 2009.^[2]

Spatula	Garganey Blue-billed teal Puna teal Silver teal Red shoveler Blue-winged teal Cinnamon teal Cape shoveler Northern shoveler Australasian shoveler