Short answers, pulled from the story.
The mallard named Trevor died on the island of Niue in 2019 after appearing there in 2018. This solitary drake became known as the world's loneliest duck before his death the following year.
Carl Linnaeus first described the mallard species in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae published in 1758. He gave the species the binomial name Anas platyrhynchos derived from Latin for duck and Ancient Greek for broad-billed.
The Hawaiian duck and the New Zealand grey duck are currently threatened by mallard hybridization in Hawaii. The Laysan duck was found throughout the Hawaiian archipelago before 400 AD and suffered a rapid decline during Polynesian colonization due to hybridization with mallards.
The Federal Aviation Administration has recorded 1320 mallard collisions with aircraft since 1990. The mallard ranks as the 7th most hazardous bird to both military and commercial aircraft in the United States.
The mallard genome was sequenced in 2013 and reveals a startling lack of genetic structure between North American and Eurasian populations. This genetic fluidity allows the mallard to interbreed with more than 40 species in the wild and an additional 20 in captivity.
The incident of homosexual necrophilia involving a mallard earned an Ig Nobel Prize in 2003. This event occurred when a male mallard copulated with another male he was chasing after the chased male died upon flying into a glass window.