It is recommended to keep this species seperate from mallards, they will readily crossbreed with one another. They are heavy ducks and do not fly very well. They do very well in aviaries and the first two of the three subspecies below are often kept. Native across India and south into Ceylon, this sexes of this subspecies are very similarly marked. The males have two red spots at the base of his bill, whereas the female, who is also slighly duller does not.
Drakes also have a pure white bar along the edge of the speculum.
Both sexes sport the yellow-tipped bill, for which the species is named. The Chinese Spot-bill is the most northern of the supspecies. It can be found in Sibera, Mongolia, northern China, Japan and Korea. They are much darker than the Indian race. Drakes also lack the two red spots above the bill and the white bar of the Indian, so sexes are hard to distingush from a distance.