Muscovy Duck

A species of duck, Cairina moschata, native to the Americas from the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas and Mexico south to Argentina and Uruguay. Indigenous peoples across the Americas had already domesticated the Muscovy duck when Columbus reached the Bahamas, and a few birds were carried back to Europe aboard the Santa Maria in the early sixteenth century. The domesticated form, known in Spanish as pato criollo, has been bred since pre-Columbian times and is heavier and less able to fly long distances than wild birds; in a culinary context it is often called the Barbary duck. The species has since become feral in parts of New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and Central and Eastern Europe.