American Peking Duck, Anas platyrhynchos domestica
American Peking Duck, Anas platyrhynchos domestica. Birds photographed within Bosque de San Juan de Aragón, Mexico City, April 2021. Photographs courtesy of Marina Sutormina, Stockholm, Sweden.
The American Peking Duck, Anas platyrhynchos domestica, is a member of the Anatidae Family of Ducks, Geese, and Waterfowl that was domesticated 3,000 years ago in China from the Mallard Duck, Anas playtyrhynchos. It is famous for being a popular component of Chinese cuisine for centuries and is a national symbol of China. They are the most popular domesticated duck in the United States. They were first imported into the United States in 1873 and raised and bred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Long Island. Both the Aflac Duck and the American folk hero Donald Duck are American Peking Ducks. They are also known as the Anas Pekin Duck, Domesticated Duck, the Long Island Duck, the Pekin, the White Duck, and the White Pekin, and in Mexico as ánade azulón doméstico.
The American Peking is large and solid in stature. They are sexually dimorphic in both color and size. They are a uniform white color with a short, straight, yellow beak and yellowish-orange legs and feet. The males have a curled tail feather. Their heads are large and rounded and their neck is thick. Their bodies are rectangular with an upturned rump with their tails projecting above the body. They have specialized webbed feet designed for paddling. The males are larger than the females and weigh up to 4.5 kg (9 lbs 14 oz) in weight. The vast majority are heavy and cannot fly.
The American Peking are gregarious and can be found in conspecific groups or mixed in with other species of ducks. They are active diurnally. They are found in the wild in wetlands and slow-moving water bodies and in captivity. In the wild, they are dabbling ducks feeding on larvae and pupae usually found under rocks, aquatic animals, crabs, small fish, plant material, seeds, and snails. They lack teeth but have serrations in their bills that allow them to filter out of the water. Their feet are adapted for paddling on water; they can also waddle on land for exploring and foraging. Wild birds breed in the spring; birds in captivity are prolific breeders breeding year-round with each female laying up to 200 eggs per year. They frequently “preen” to remove parasites from their feathers, to maintain waterproofing of the outer feathers, and to add oil to their feathers that allow “water to run off a duck’s back”. They have life spans of between ten to fifteen years.
In Mexico, the American Peking Duck can be found in all freshwater bodies throughout the country. The majority found in the wild are “Easter ducklings” that mature quickly into messy adults that are abandoned in local ponds.
From a conservation perspective, the American Peking Duck is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. They are raised extensively for their eggs, for their meat being capable of reaching adult weight in only seven weeks with 95% of all duck meat sold in the United States being American Peking, and for their down feathers. They have also become popular household pets, riding gardens of harmful bugs, and are similar to dogs that follow their owners around. They are also raised as show birds.