This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae as Anas acuta.
The scientific name comes from two Latin words: anas, meaning "duck", and acuta, which comes from the verb acuere, "to sharpen"; the species term, like the English name, refers to the pointed tail of the male in breeding plumage.

Within the large dabbling duck genus Anas, the northern pintail's closest relatives are other pintails, such as the yellow-billed pintail (A. georgica) and Eaton's pintail (A. eatoni).
The pintails are sometimes separated in the genus Dafila (described by Stephens, 1824), an arrangement supported by morphological, molecular and behavioural data.
The famous British ornithologist Sir Peter Scott gave this name to his daughter, the artist Dafila Scott.

Eaton's pintail has two subspecies, A. e. eatoni (the Kerguelen pintail) of Kerguelen Islands, and A. e. drygalskyi (the Crozet pintail) of Crozet Islands, and was formerly considered conspecific with the Northern Hemisphere's northern pintail.
Sexual dimorphism is much less marked in the southern pintails, with the male's breeding appearance being similar to the female plumage.
Unusually for a species with such a large range, northern pintail has no geographical subspecies if Eaton's pintail is treated as a separate species.

A claimed extinct subspecies from Manra Island, Tristram's pintail, A. a. modesta, appears to be indistinguishable from the nominate form.
The three syntype specimens of Dafila modesta Tristram (Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1886, p.79.
pl.
VII), the extinct subspecies, are held in the collections of National Museums Liverpool at World Museum, with accession numbers T11792 (male immature), T11795 (female adult) and T11797 (female adult).
The specimens were collected by J. V. Arundel in Sydney Island (Manra Island), Phoenix Islands in 1885 and came to the Liverpool national collection via Canon Henry Baker Tristram's collection which was purchased in 1896.
This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae as Anas acuta. The scientific name comes from two Latin words: anas, meaning "duck", and acuta, which comes from the verb acuere, "to sharpen"; the species term, like the English name, refers to the pointed tail of the male in breeding plumage.
Within the large dabbling duck genus Anas, the northern pintail's closest relatives are other pintails, such as the yellow-billed pintail (A. georgica) and Eaton's pintail (A. eatoni). The pintails are sometimes separated in the genus Dafila (described by Stephens, 1824), an arrangement supported by morphological, molecular and behavioural data. The famous British ornithologist Sir Peter Scott gave this name to his daughter, the artist Dafila Scott.
Eaton's pintail has two subspecies, A. e. eatoni (the Kerguelen pintail) of Kerguelen Islands, and A. e. drygalskyi (the Crozet pintail) of Crozet Islands, and was formerly considered conspecific with the Northern Hemisphere's northern pintail. Sexual dimorphism is much less marked in the southern pintails, with the male's breeding appearance being similar to the female plumage. Unusually for a species with such a large range, northern pintail has no geographical subspecies if Eaton's pintail is treated as a separate species.
A claimed extinct subspecies from Manra Island, Tristram's pintail, A. a. modesta, appears to be indistinguishable from the nominate form. The three syntype specimens of Dafila modesta Tristram (Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1886, p.79. pl. VII), the extinct subspecies, are held in the collections of National Museums Liverpool at World Museum, with accession numbers T11792 (male immature), T11795 (female adult) and T11797 (female adult). The specimens were collected by J. V. Arundel in Sydney Island (Manra Island), Phoenix Islands in 1885 and came to the Liverpool national collection via Canon Henry Baker Tristram's collection which was purchased in 1896.
Northern pintail