Anatomy
The characteristic features of the family Anatidae are the skin-covered, lamellate bill and thick, fleshy tongue. Screamers have a short nonlamellate bill, slightly hooked, like that of a domestic hen, and a horny tongue. Their bill is adapted for tearing aquatic plants. Among the waterfowl the basic bill has undergone a wide adaptive radiation. The geese have evolved strong, deep bills with hard, sharp lamellae. In some, such as the red-breasted goose (Branta ruficollis), the bill is short and slight, used only for grazing; in others, such as the snow goose (Anser caerulescens), it is long and heavy enough to dig for roots and tubers. The massive digging bill reaches maximum development in the magpie goose. The little pygmy geese (Nettapus species) are so called for their gooselike bills, but they actually feed on lotus seeds and water vegetation and neither graze nor root for food. The European widgeon (Anas penelope), on the other hand, grazes extensively, but its bill differs little from the typical duck bill—flattened with platelike lamellae. This is used for sifting particles out of mud or picking up food items from the lake bottom as the bird upends itself. The sieving bill is yet further developed in the shovelers and the pink-eared duck (Malacorhynchus membranaceus), the lamellae becoming extremely fine, enabling particles as small as diatoms to be taken from the surface film. The blue duck (Hymenolaimus malacorhynchos) has a rounded, expanded tip to the bill, which probably protects it when poking around sharp pebbles. The pochards have fewer lamellae and a narrower bill than the dabbling ducks. In the mergansers the lamellae have become toothlike projections in the long narrow bill, ideal for holding fish; additionally, the tongue has two dorsal rows of barbs. None has developed pickax bills or ones for crushing hard food items, such as mollusks. When such foods are eaten, they are broken up in the gizzard.
The legs and feet vary according to whether the main mode of progression is walking (as in geese) or swimming (as in divers). The latter have flattened foot bones to reduce water resistance on the forward stroke, the hind toe being lobed. Webs are fully developed between the front three digits, except in the magpie goose (primitively) and the Hawaiian goose, or nene, where it is believed that the greater flexibility of the toes makes for easier walking on broken lava beds. The claws on the digits are particularly sharp in forms such as the perching ducks, which normally nest in treeholes.
The wings are not of unusual structure but vary widely in shape, from the broad expanse of the slow and maneuverable fliers to the narrow sweeps of the fastest. Some of the whistling ducks have modified vanes on the outer primaries that produce a whirring noise in flight. The sighing creak of the wings of the mute swan (Cygnus olor) is well known. In a few cases the wing is so reduced in size that the bird is flightless, as is the Auckland Island race of the brown teal (Anas aucklandica). Many waterfowl have horny knobs on the wrist joint located near the end of the wing; in some there is a distinctly projecting spur, as in the screamers, the spur-winged goose, and the torrent duck. In the first two, the spurs are actually used to strike adversaries; in the last, they may be of more use in progressing over slippery rocks in a raging stream.
A structure that has received much attention, largely because of its taxonomic value, is the trachea. This may be straight (geese and ducks) or looped in various ways (magpie geese and swans), the most elaborate being that of the trumpeter swan (Cygnus buccinator). Here it first enters the sternum, flexing twice into horizontal and vertical bony pockets, then emerging again to coil around and back into the lungs. The analogy to an orchestral wind instrument is obvious, and a comparable sound is produced. Less obvious is the relation of shape to sound in the asymmetrical chamber (bulla) found at the base of the male trachea in most ducks. The male’s whistle certainly differs from the female’s quack, but it is difficult to account for the variation in bulla shapes—round and solidly ossified (dabbling ducks), angular with membranous “windows” (stifftails), or complexly membranous (mergansers).
The anseriform birds share with the curassows, tinamous, and ratites (ostriches, emus, rheas, and the like) the possession of an intromittent male organ. This is not homologous with the mammalian penis but is instead a vascularized sac everted from the wall of the cloaca. It is protruded by muscular action and retracted by an elastic ligament. This gives it a spiral form, and sperm pass along a groove to the tip. This organ doubtless facilitates copulation on the water. Its presence permits easy sexing of birds that lack differences in plumage between the sexes. The size of the organ also allows an estimate of the bird’s age. However, that is more safely done by determining the depth of the bursa of Fabricius, a glandular organ opening into the cloaca that diminishes with maturity.