Social displays of mallard ducks ( Anas platyrhynchos ): Effects of domestication.

Abstract

Adult Peking ducks (A. platyrhynchos), a highly domesticated form of mallard, were observed in a natural setting during 3 breeding seasons. These domestic ducks performed all the species-typical social displays, and exhibited the major sequences of these displays, found in the wild mallard. Additionally, the male Pekings exhibited the mallardlike seasonal distribution of the grunt-whistle, head up-tail up, and down-up displays; and like the mallard, the Pekings were more likely to perform the down-up motor pattern than the grunt-whistle or head up-tail up patterns when displaying synchronously in male groups. These data offer no justification for the view that domestication has had a degenerative effect on social courtship behavior patterns but rather are supportive of the view that the customary nonoccurrence of these displays is a function of the inhibiting or unfavorable environmental context in which the domestic birds usually find themselves.