Members of the genus are sexually dimorphic, with the cotton pygmy goose the only species in which there is a marked difference in the non-breeding plumage of the males. The genus name is from Ancient Greek nētta meaning "duck" and pous meaning "foot". The cotton pygmy goose is now one of three species placed in the genus Nettapus that was introduced in 1836 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich von Brandt. Hand-coloured plates had been published separately. Gmelin based his description on "La Sarcelle de Coromandel" that had been described in 1783 by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux.
He placed it with the ducks, swans and geese in the genus Anas and coined the binomial name Anas coromandeliana. The cotton pygmy goose was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. Their breeding season coincides with the rains.
They are strong fliers and are known to disperse widely, especially in winter. They are usually seen in pairs or larger groups of pairs, roosting and nesting on trees near water. They are among the smallest waterfowl in the world and are found in small to large waterbodies with good aquatic vegetation. The cotton pygmy goose or cotton teal ( Nettapus coromandelianus) is a small perching duck which breeds in Asia, Southeast Asia extending south and east to Queensland where they are sometimes called white-quilled pygmy goose.
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