Greater scaup been described by Serebrovskij in 1941 from fossils recovered at Binagady, Azerbaijan. The greater scaup's name may come from "scalp", a Scottish and Northern English word for a shellfish bed, or from the duck's mating call: "scaup scaup". A phylogenetic analysis of the diving ducks, examining the skeletal anatomy and skin, found that the greater and lesser scaups are each other's closest relatives, with the tufted duck as the next closest relative of the pair. The adult greater scaup is long with a wingspan and a body mass of . It has a blue bill and yellow eyes and is
Greater scaup on them, so that if the scaup is killed by a hunter or if it is captured by another banding group, the number on the band can be reported to biologists and wildlife organizations. These banding programs yield valuable data about migration patterns, harvest rates, and survival rates. Greater scaup are a popular game bird in North America and Europe. They are hunted in Denmark, Germany, Greece, France, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, and in Iran for both sport and commercial reasons. Greater scaup are hunted with shotguns because they must be shot on the fly, a challenging task, as