Piscivorous duck
Linnaeus description, rend
ition Audubon
Erdos 2023
Merganser
The first formal description of the common merganser was by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae. He introduced the current binomial name Mergus merganser.[2] The genus name is a Latin word used by Pliny and other Roman authors to refer to an unspecified waterbird, and merganser is derived from mergus and anser, Latin for “goose”.[3] In 1843 John James Audubon used the name “Buff-breasted Merganser” in addition to “goosander” in his book The Birds of America.[4]
The three subspecies differ in only minor detail:[5][6]
· M. m. merganser – Linnaeus, 1758 is found throughout northern Europe and northern Asiatic Russia.
· M. m. orientalis – Gould, 1845 (syn. M. m. comatus – Salvadori, 1895) is found in the Central Asian mountains. Slightly larger than M. m. merganser, it has a more slender bill.
· M. m. americanus – Cassin, 1852 is found in North America. Its bill is broader-based than in M. m. merganser, and a black bar crosses the white inner wing (visible in flight) on males.