Critically Endangered
Crested Shelduck
Tadorna cristata
Crested Shelduck is a bird in the family Anatidae (order Anseriformes) — Tadorna cristata, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
The crested shelduck is sexually dimorphic, with the male possessing a greenish-black crown, breast, primaries, and tail, while the rest of its face, chin, and throat are brownish black. The male's belly, undertail coverts, and flanks are a dark grey with black striations. The upper wing coverlets are white, while its speculum is an iridescent green.
Range and habitat
It is believed to have a relict range, or to have been more widespread in historic times. This species is believed to live in a wide variety of wetland and deep-water habitats at varying elevations. While all collected individuals are from the coast, especially near river mouths, recently there have been a number of reports from interior wetlands in northeastern China.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
Even though not much is known about this shelduck, it is believed to be migratory, traveling from Siberia in the breeding season to Korea, southern Russia, and Japan for the winter. The crested shelduck is believed to eat aquatic vegetation, agricultural crops, algae, invertebrates, mollusks, crustaceans, carrion, and garbage.
It has been suggested that this shelduck may be a nocturnal feeder. While its nest has not been described, similar shelducks nest in burrows and cavities. It has also been suggested that this species may nest in tree cavities.
In crisis
It is critically endangered. Some think that this species is extinct, although occasional sightings are reported, among them a number of reports made between 1985 and 1991 from the interior wetlands of China. Due to the persistent reports of the species' survival, it is listed as critically endangered.
The species is known from only a handful of sightings and some retroactively declared it extinct in 1916 after a female was shot at Busan, South Korea. It is believed that, if the species survives, there likely are fewer than 50 individuals.
Crested Shelduck is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Crested Shelduck, Wikidata item Q902924. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
