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Little Ripper, the Musk Duck. Photo: ACT Government.<\/p>\n
Little Ripper, he\u2019s called. And with good reason.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s a musk duck, Australia\u2019s largest duck species, and is the last surviving member of his family out at the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. And this year, he also became the oldest known musk duck in Australia. Indeed, the world!<\/p>\n
\u201cHappy Birthday to Ripper \u2013 Tidbinbilla\u2019s resident musk duck, who turned 27 this January,\u201d the ACT Parks and Conservation Service wrote in a Facebook post.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as we know, this makes Ripper the oldest-living musk duck in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Male musk ducks can grow to 73 cm long. Photo: ACT Government.<\/p>\n
What is a musk duck?<\/p>\n
A fully grown musk duck, like Little Ripper, is not actually so little, measuring between 47 and 73 cm. They\u2019re usually found in deep freshwater lagoons, ranging from northern Western Australia all the way along the south and east up to southern Queensland.<\/p>\n
The musk part of the name comes from the pungent odour the males produce from a gland on their rear end \u2013 designed to help attract females during breeding season.<\/p>\n
He can also inflate a lobe of skin on the throat to create a really loud whistle.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d comfortably hear him from 60 to 80 metres away,\u201d Tidbinbilla ranger Scott Ryan says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty loud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk ducks dive for their food, hence a shape \u201cmore like a submarine\u201d than other ducks, with long and sleek bodies and legs that point backwards.<\/p>\n
A less endearing point is that they\u2019re also the only meat-eating duck species in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey mostly feed on aquatic invertebrates, like beetles, snails and crustaceans,\u201d Scott adds.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they\u2019ll also eat fish and frogs and \u2013 more unpleasantly \u2013 other tiny ducklings. Not generally from their own species, but certainly other species of ducklings.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Tidbinbilla ran a musk duck breeding program in the 1980s and \u201990s. Photo: ACT Parks and Conservation Service, Facebook.<\/p>\n
How this duck became \u2018Little Ripper\u2019<\/p>\n
The Australian musk duck population is mostly secure, but Tidbinbilla did run a breeding program for the species in the 1980s and 1990s.<\/p>\n
But Little Ripper, hatched on 5 January 1999, is the last surviving member of his family. The rest perished during the 2003 bushfires.<\/p>\n
\u201cRipper is one of the very few animals out here that actually survived the fires, and certainly the only musk duck,\u201d Scott says.<\/p>\n
His name is actually carried from his father, though.<\/p>\n
Ripper Senior was hatched in 1989 from an egg that had been handed into the rangers, and not one they ever expected to come to anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone had found an egg, and handed it in to Tidbinbilla, and the rangers didn\u2019t think that it would hatch because it actually smelled a bit bad \u2013 which is often what happens when you have a few eggs in a nest and a couple go bad,\u201d Scott explains.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut they hatched it, underneath a Bantom Hen, and the person there at the time rang the head of wildlife and their response was \u2018You little ripper\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
The name has stuck through two generations now.<\/p>\n
A cushy retirement<\/p>\n
Scott says Little Ripper is a gentle soul, certainly not aggressive and usually only interested in you if you\u2019re carrying a white bucket of food.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe comes up close enough to see if you\u2019ve got a fish. If you don\u2019t, he leaves you pretty quick.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Little Ripper inherited his name from his father. Photo: ACT Government.<\/p>\n
He and the other ducks are fed grain and vegetable matter every day, but how hungry he is depends on how much food he\u2019s been able to find for himself by foraging. He certainly shows no sign of slowing down in his old age.<\/p>\n
\u201cMusk ducks normally live for about 20 years in the wild, but obviously Little Ripper lives in captivity and doesn\u2019t have to deal with predators like cats and foxes,\u201d Scott says.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the reality is he lives a pretty normal, wild-like kind of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scott says the happy occasion passed by just like any other day for Little Ripper \u2013 with the exception of an extra fish.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe still carries on with courtship behaviour, kicking his legs and splashing and letting off that really high-pitched whistle. It\u2019s quite a spectacular sight to see.\u201d<\/p>\n