Madagascar Teal

The Madagascar teal, also called Bernier's teal, is a small brown duck found only on Madagascar, mainly along the west coast and in the extreme north-east. It lives in mangrove forests and favours open, shallow, mostly brackish ponds and lakes. It spends much of the day feeding, wading at the water's edge, filtering mud and dabbling at the surface for invertebrates, plant material and insects. It measures 40 to 45 cm long. All known wild nests have been in holes in grey mangrove trees 1 to 3 m above the water, where the female lays her eggs on the bare floor of the cavity and later covers them with down from her own breast.

About the Madagascar teal

The Madagascar teal (Anas bernieri), also called Bernier's teal, is a small, endangered dabbling duck found only along the west coast of Madagascar, where it lives in mangrove forest. It belongs to the "grey teal" group of ducks centered on Australasia, and its closest living relative is the Andaman teal of the Bay of Bengal.

The German ornithologist Gustav Hartlaub first described it in 1860 as Querquedula bernieri. Both its common and scientific names honor Chevalier Bernier, a French naval surgeon and naturalist who collected nearly 200 specimens of various species while stationed in Madagascar. The genus name Anas is Latin for "duck." No subspecies are recognized.

Genetic studies suggest it may have been the sister species of the Mascarene teal, also called Sauzier's teal, a small duck that lived on nearby Mauritius and Réunion. That bird was hunted heavily and died out on Mauritius around 1700 and on Réunion about a decade later. It was a little larger than the Madagascar teal.

The group includes the grey teal itself, found in open wetlands of Australia and New Zealand, a mottled brown dabbling duck with a crimson eye and white and green flashes on its wings. Like the Madagascar teal, grey teal males and females share the same coloring. Grey teal are nomadic in Australia, quickly moving into new wetlands after rain.

The Madagascar teal is a small duck, 40–45 cm (16–18 in) long and weighing 320–405 g (11.3–14.3 oz). Males average slightly heavier than females, but otherwise adults and young of both sexes look the same. The plumage is mostly warm brown, the bill is reddish, and the legs and feet are a dull reddish-orange.

Behavior and diet

The Madagascar teal spends much of its day actively feeding. It wades at the edges of shallow water, filtering mud through its bill and dabbling at the surface. Its food includes invertebrates, insects and plant material.

The two sexes sound different. The male whistles, while the female gives what has been described as a croaking quack.

All known wild nests have been found in grey mangrove trees, in holes 1–3 m (3.3–9.8 ft) above the water or close to it. In captivity the species also accepts nest boxes. The pair brings in no nesting material. The female lays her eggs straight onto the floor of the cavity and covers them, first with wood shavings or bits of rotting wood and later with down plucked from her own breast.

Captive clutches have ranged from 3 to 9 eggs, averaging 6.75 per female. The eggs are pale buff, smooth and oval, averaging 46 by 34.6 mm (1.81 by 1.36 in), smaller than the eggs of any other grey teal. Only the female incubates. Nesting in tree holes is not unique to this bird among its relatives: the extinct Mascarene teal may have nested in tree holes too, and the grey teal sometimes uses tree holes or rabbit burrows, though it usually nests on the ground near lakes and marshes.

Range and habitat

The Madagascar teal is endemic to Madagascar. Its range takes in the whole west coast and the extreme northeast of the island, though it is known to breed at only a few sites on the central and northwestern coasts.

It lives in mangrove forests and rarely leaves them. Within the mangroves it favors open, shallow ponds and lakes, most of them brackish. Subfossil bones from the Holocene show that the species once lived across a much wider area of the island than it does today. It is not Madagascar's only native duck; Meller's duck also lives on the island and is the larger of the two.

Madagascar teal vs Andaman teal

Studies point to the Andaman teal as the Madagascar teal's closest living relative, although Madagascar and the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal are far apart. Both are small, brown members of the grey teal group.

Other teal include the marbled teal, the puna teal of the Andes and the ringed teal.

Conservation status

The Madagascar teal is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List and appears on Appendix II of CITES. It is described as being on the verge of extinction, with only about 1,500 birds left.

The main threat is the loss of the mangrove forests it depends on. Mangroves are being cut for timber and fuel and cleared to expand farming. The teal is also hunted for food. Because the birds rarely leave mangroves and all known wild nests are in mangrove tree holes, losing those forests removes both feeding and nesting habitat.

Captive breeding offers a backstop. The species is now held in wildfowl collections around the world, and several captive breeding programs exist, including one in Jersey that had reared nearly 100 birds after starting in 1995.