The scientific name commemorates the late New Zealand ornithologist and palaeontologist Ron Scarlett who discovered the holotype in 1941.

However, previously undescribed bones of the species found in 1903 were rediscovered in the Otago Museum in 1998.

[1] Given the relatively few fossil remains found, it is assumed that Scarlett's duck was a largely nomadic and territorial bird.

Like its Australian relative, Scarlett's duck had a wide, flattened bill, which has led to an assumption that it was a filter feeder in shallow waters.

Fossil remains found in Māori middens at the Wairau Bar and at Lake Grassmere in the Marlborough region indicate that it was extensively hunted by the early Polynesian settlers.