on and around Lake Susupe. The birds were rather reclusive, preferring sheltered habitat with plenty of wetland and water plants – fern thickets (Acrostichum aureum) and reed beds (Scirpus, Cyperus and Phragmites), where they also nested. Usually, pairs or small flocks were encountered, but in the key habitats larger groups of dozens and rarely up to 50–60 individuals could be found. Apart from possible inter-island movement, the birds were not migratory. Feeding and reproduction are not well documented, but cannot expected to differ significantly from its immediate relatives. The Mariana mallard fed on aquatic invertebrates, small vertebrates and plants, and although they were not observed up-ending like mallards, they probably did so. Breeding was recorded from at least January to July, with a peak in June–July at the end of the dry season. One male specimen taken in October was also in breeding condition; thus, the birds may have bred nearly year-round at least on occasion. Unfortunately, the courtship behavior, which in the strongly sexually dimorphic mallard is focused more on presentation of visual cues than in the monomorphic Pacific black duck (although it is generally similar in both species), was never recorded. Clutches consisted of 7–12 pale grey-green oval eggs, measuring 6.16 x 3.89 cm on average. Incubation lasted around 28 days, males took no part in it and neither in caring for the ducklings. The precocial and nidifugous young fledged when about eight weeks old and became sexually mature the following year. Extinction The birds declined due to draining of wetlands for agriculture and construction. Hunting pressure was probably heavy, despite a ban on gun ownership under Japanese control (1914–1945), as the birds were unwary to traps, and at any rate the gun ban was lifted after World War II. By the 1940s, flocks of more than a dozen birds were seldom seen. On Guam, the last sightings were in 1949 and 1967—the latter being a single, possibly vagrant, bird—and on Tinian in 1974. As Lake Susupe offered the most plentiful and least accessible habitat, although it too suffered from pollution by sugar mill wastes, the Saipan population lingered on for a few more years. The Mariana mallard was listed as federally endangered on June 2, 1977. In 1979, two males and a female were found on Saipan and caught; one male was later released, the last wild bird ever to be encountered. The pair was brought to