Lost Birds
© Birds of the World | Cornell Lab of Ornithology [Àngels Jutglar]

Pink-headed Duck

Rhodonessa caryophyllacea

FAMILY

Ducks, Geese, and Waterfowl (Anatidae)

LAST DOCUMENTED

1923

(101 years)

REGION

Asia

IUCN STATUS

Critically Endangered

Background

With their pink plumage and elegant shape, this striking and extraordinary duck is one of the iconic lost birds. Known from secluded and densely vegetated wetlands in northeast India and Bangladesh, it is thought to be primarily nocturnal. Although the last known captive individual survived until the late 1940s, the last wild specimens were collected during the early 1920s.

Last Documented

The last wild specimens appear to be a pair from northeast India (April 1923), while the last captive specimen (Kolkata, India) apparently perished in 1948 (Hume 2017).

Page Editors

  • Cameron Rutt
  • Search for Lost Birds

Species News

  • Keeping the Dream Alive: an update on the search for the Pink-headed Duck

    John C. Mittermeier / 8 Jul 2024

    The year is 1998, and Richard Thorns is on his lunch break from working as a menswear sales assistant in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, southern England. He heads to the local library to find a book to read and at random picks up a copy of Vanishing Birds by Tim Halliday. While flipping through its pages, an illustration stops him in his tracks. Richard stares in wonder at bubble-gum pink feathers and his life is never the same.

    That same year, on another continent over 8,000 kilometers away, Mr. Ko Pho Thar Hew is on his way to work at a nearby goldmine on the Ma Pyin Road bordering the Naung Kwin wetland in Kachin State, Myanmar. Walking by, he inadvertently spooks a flock of ducks into flight. Looking up at the birds, one duck stands out to him as strange. As he watches them fly away, he thinks he sees a bright pink head and long slender neck moving through the sky.

    The rare bird in question? The nearly mythical Pink-headed Duck. Extremely shy, possibly nocturnal, and known for laying perfectly spherical eggs, the Pink-headed Duck has not been seen conclusively in the wild since 1949 in India and is one of Re:wild’s “most wanted” lost species by the Search for Lost Species and one of the 120 lost birds by the Search for Lost Birds. 

    Most recently, an expedition back to Kachin State came back with news that a key survey site had been destroyed by regional gold mining. While this heartbreaking finding might have deterred others, the passion and commitment of the team searching for the species remains unruffled. The hope of finding the Pink-headed Duck is still very much alive, and some might even say contagious.

    Read More

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