'Aix' is an Ancient Greek word which was used by Aristotle to refer to an unknown diving bird, and 'galericulata' is the Latin for a wig, derived from galerum, a cap or bonnet.

Outside of its native range, the mandarin duck has a large introduced population in the British Isles and Western Europe, with additional smaller introductions in North America.

One kind particularly I cannot forbear mentioning, because of the surprizing beauty of its male, call'd Kinmodsui, which is so great, that being shew'd its picture in colours, I could hardly believe my own Eyes, till I saw the Bird it self, it being a very common one.

"[4] In 1747 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the species in the second volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds.

He based his hand-coloured etching on a live specimen kept by the merchant Matthew Decker on his estate at Richmond in Surrey.

Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Anas galericulata and cited the earlier publications.

The adult male has a petite, red bill, large white crescent above the eye and reddish face and "whiskers".

The female is paler on the underside, has a small white flank stripe, and a pale tip to its bill.

When in eclipse plumage, the male looks similar to the female but can be distinguished by its bright yellow-orange or red beak, lack of any crest, and a less-pronounced eye-stripe.

Although the origin of this mutation is unknown, the constant pairing of related birds and selective breeding is presumed to have led to recessive gene combinations, leading in turn to genetic conditions including leucism.

[11][needs update] Specimens frequently escape from collections, and in the 20th century, a large, feral population was established in Great Britain; more recently, small numbers have bred in Ireland, concentrated in the parks of Dublin.

[citation needed] Owing to its different habitat preferences compared to native water birds, the mandarin duck appears to have had no negative impacts on native wildfowl as a result of its introduction to the UK, as it does not engage in competition with other ducks over their habitats.

[11] Compared to other ducks, mandarins are shy birds, preferring to seek cover under trees such as overhanging willows, and form smaller flocks,[16] but when accustomed to humans may exhibit bolder behaviour.

In the wild, mandarin ducks breed in densely wooded areas near shallow lakes, marshes or ponds.

[23] In the Zuojia Nature Reserve in Northeast China, 46.1% of Mandarin ducks were found to practice conspecific brood parasitism.

Mink, raccoon dogs, otters, polecats, Eurasian eagle-owls, and grass snakes are all predators of the mandarin duck.

Because the male and female plumages of the mandarin duck are so unalike, 'yuan-yang' is frequently used colloquially in Cantonese to mean an "odd couple" or "unlikely pair" – a mixture of two different types of the same category; for example, the drink yuanyang and yuan-yang fried rice.