The African pygmy goose (Nettapus auritus) is a perching duck from sub-Saharan Africa.

The African pygmy goose was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux in 1785.

[4] The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text.

[5] Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Anas aurita in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées.

[7] The current genus Nettapus was erected by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich von Brandt 1836.

The wing feathers are black with metallic green iridescence on the coverts, with the exemption of a white bar on the distal secondaries.

The wing feathers are dark brown-black with the exemption of a white bar on the distal secondaries.

[11] Ducklings have a white face with a pattern similar to that of the adult female in black and a dark gray eye patch.

[13] The African pygmy goose feeds mainly on the seeds of water lilies (Nymphaea spp.)