A duck parvovirus (DPV) isolated from muscovy ducks during the epizootic in France in 1989 was purified from inoculated allanto-amniotic fluids by CsCl density gradient centrifugation and characterized. Full and empty non-enveloped icosahedral viral particles were observed banding at densities of 1.39 to 1.42 and 1.38 respectively, with a diameter of 22 to 23 nm. Viral proteins were analyzed by SDS-PAGE and the estimated molecular weights of the 3 major proteins were 91, 78 and 58 kDa. The nucleic acid was shown to be a single-stranded DNA of about 5,300 bases with terminal palindromic hairpins. These results confirm the previous classification of the virus in the family Parvoviridae established by Jestin et al. [14] on morphological and serological bases. The DPV DNA was reannealed indicating that complementary DNA strands were encapsidated. A partial restriction endonuclease map was also established. This work constitutes the first biochemical and genomic description of a muscovy duck parvovirus.