Unlimited edition. 18 x 24 inch, museum-quality poster on matte paper.

The pink-eared duck wears a bright pink or magenta triangle just behind its dark umber eye mask. It’s a fairly fabulous bird, one with some serious Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie flare. As is made clear by the small band of pink in this color column, however, the pink flounce is easy to miss. (See the detail showing the band of pink, which is visible on the actual poster print.) In fact, some Australians prefer to call it the zebra duck because you *can’t* miss the zebra-like striping on its neck, breast, and flanks.

The duck’s scientific binomial references a different feature altogether. Malacorhynchus membranaceus translates roughly as “soft-nose membrane” and describes the pink-eared duck’s marvelously specialized bill. The bill isn’t just spoon- or spatula-shaped like shoveler duck species; it also has pliable flaps that direct the water into the bill in such a way that makes the species’ filter-feeding even more efficient. The duck’s diet is primarily composed of plankton, but they will also consume small crustaceans, mollusks, and insects. Curiously, the pink-eared duck will sometimes team up to feed, using a technique biologists call vortexing; two ducks spin about a central point in the water, with the head of one bird positioned opposite the tail of the other, drawing food up from below in a spinning water column.

Note: These archival poster prints feature rich, appealing colors. I encourage customers to take care in handling them until they are framed/protected for display; the darker colors on the matte paper can be scratched. They ship rolled, so customers need to flatten them before framing (or have their framer do so).

Charitable Sales Model: Whenever one of these poster prints is purchased, a charitable contribution equal to 10% of the print’s cost (or $3.60) is made to a nonprofit working to tackle environmental or social challenges. Read more about my charitable sales model here.