Relations
Due to the outward similarity of Meller's Duck to the female Mallard, it was commonly placed close to that species. Based on records of quasi-forced hybridization under unnatural conditions, it was even proposed to be a mere color morph of the Mallard.
Nowadays, it is regarded as one of the most distinct species in the mallard group, based on behavioural and mtDNA D-loop sequence comparisons. Its closest relatives is apparently the Yellow-billed Duck, another early divergence of the mallard clade, in which these species and the African Black Duck are basal, but the exact relationships of Meller's and the Yellow-billed Ducks to that species are fairly obscure. (The dates in these studies are probably far too recent in the face of the Early Pleistocene fossil record of mallards and the crude methodology used to arrive at the estimate.)
Read more about this topic: Meller's Duck
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