As the "perching ducks" are a paraphyletic group, they need to be placed elsewhere.

See also the monotypic subfamilies above, and the "perching ducks"

Hymenolaimus: Blue Duck (New Zealand) - formerly in "perching ducks"

With the breaking-up of the "perching ducks", it was rather provisionally placed in the dabbling duck genus Anas.

Initially, it was believed to belong to the "perching ducks", a paraphyletic assemblage of species which generally fell between dabbling ducks and shelducks.

Merganetta: Torrent Duck (Andes mountains, South America) - formerly in "perching ducks"

The pygmy geese are a group of very small "perching ducks" in the genus Nettapus which breed in the Old World tropics.

Salvadorina: Salvadori's Teal (New Guinea) - formerly in Anatidae and "perching ducks"

Following the review of Livezey (1986), several species formerly classified as aberrant dabbling ducks or as "perching ducks" were placed in the Tadorninae.

Subfamily: Plectropterinae (One genus in Africa, formerly included in the "perching ducks", but closer to the Tadorninae)

However, the perching ducks turned out to be a paraphyletic assemblage of various tropical waterfowl that simply had happened to evolve the ability to perch well in their forested habitat.

These were initially placed as type genus in the "Cairininae" (or "Cairinini"), a supposed group of "perching ducks" which was somewhat intermediate between dabbling ducks and shelducks.

Traditionally, most ducks were assigned to either the shelducks, the perching ducks, and the dabbling and diving ducks; the latter two were presumed to make up the Anatinae.

The perching ducks ("Cairininae" or "Cairinini") were previously treated as a small group of ducks in the duck, goose and swan family Anatidae, grouped together on the basis of their readiness to perch high in trees.

They were formerly placed in the "perching ducks", a paraphyletic group somewhat intermediate between shelducks and dabbling ducks, and it is not quite clear whether they should be placed in the Anatinae (dabbling duck) or Tadorninae (shelduck) subfamily.