Taxonomy
This species was described by Linnaeus in his Systema naturae in 1758 under its current scientific name. Usually placed in Anas like most dabbling ducks, it stands well apart from such species as the Mallard and together with the other shovelers and their relatives forms a "blue-winged" group that may warrant separation as genus Spatula.
No living subspecies are accepted today. Fossil bones of a very similar duck have been found in Early Pleistocene deposits at Dursunlu, Turkey. It is unresolved, however, how these birds were related to the Northern Shoveler of today; i.e., whether the differences noted were due to being a related species or paleosubspecies, or attributable to individual variation.
Read more about this topic: Northern Shoveler