Abstract: Plumage color is a important economy trait . Melanocortin 1-receptor(MC1 R)gene is a key gene in melanogenesis in mamma1.A pair of oligonucleotide primers were designed according to the conserved region of MC1R gene of gallus, coturnix japonica, anser caerulescens, and pavo cristatus. PCR amplifications , cloning and sequencing were performed on maxima DNA of mule duck and anas platyrhynchos. The results showed two fragments of 900bp were obtained , whose accession numbers were EU877265 and EU877264 in the GenBank, respectively. The 8 mutaions were found in the two fragments. The mutations in 184（T/A）,229（G/A）,364（A/G）and 385（G/A）led to the amino acid replacement at 62（C/S）,77（E/K）,122（T/A）and 129（V/I）, respectively. The results were the basic information to further study SNPs of MC1R gene associated with plumage color on mule duck. By using the program of Blast on GenBank, the results indicated that duck had homology with 98.4% homology with branta bernicla at nucleotide level of MC1R gene, and 92.8％～98.2% homology with other birds.The results demonstrated that MC1R gene of bird was relatively conserved. The results of phylogenetic analysis showed that consanguinity relations between mule duck, anas platyrhynchos and branta bernicla, anser caerulescens, anser canagica were close.The status of them were confirmed on zoologyl by means of molecular method.