Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Anseriformes > Anatidae > Somateria > Somateria spectabilis

Somateria spectabilis (King Eider)

Synonyms: Anas spectabilis (homotypic)
Language: French

Wikipedia Abstract

The king eider (pronounced /ˈaɪ.dər/) (Somateria spectabilis) is a large sea duck that breeds along Northern Hemisphere Arctic coasts of northeast Europe, North America and Asia. The birds spend most of the year in coastal marine ecosystems at high latitudes, and migrate to Arctic tundra to breed in June and July. They lay four to seven eggs in a scrape on the ground lined with grass and down.
View Wikipedia Record: Somateria spectabilis

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
1
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
10
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 3.11996
EDGE Score: 1.41584

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  3.984 lbs (1.807 kg)
Birth Weight [3]  73 grams
Breeding Habitat [2]  Arctic tundra, Arctic coastal
Wintering Geography [2]  Coastal U.S./Canada
Wintering Habitat [2]  Arctic coastal, Coastal marine
Diet [4]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Granivore, Herbivore
Diet - Invertibrates [4]  80 %
Diet - Plants [4]  10 %
Diet - Seeds [4]  10 %
Forages - Water Surface [4]  20 %
Forages - Underwater [4]  80 %
Clutch Size [7]  5
Clutches / Year [6]  1
Fledging [5]  30 days
Global Population (2017 est.) [2]  570,000
Incubation [6]  23 days
Maximum Longevity [6]  19 years
Snout to Vent Length [5]  21 inches (53 cm)
Speed [8]  35.791 MPH (16 m/s)
Wing Span [8]  37 inches (.93 m)
Female Maturity [6]  2 years
Male Maturity [6]  2 years

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Important Bird Areas

Prey / Diet

Caprella septentrionalis[9]
Hyas araneus (Atlantic lyre crab)[9]
Mya pseudoarenaria (false softshell clam)[9]
Ophiura sarsii[9]
Pentamera calcigera[9]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Falco rusticolus (Gyrfalcon)[10]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1Storchová, Lenka; Hořák, David (2018), Data from: Life-history characteristics of European birds, Dryad, Dataset, https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n6k3n
2Partners in Flight Avian Conservation Assessment Database, version 2017. Accessed on January 2018.
3Terje Lislevand, Jordi Figuerola, and Tamás Székely. 2007. Avian body sizes in relation to fecundity, mating system, display behavior, and resource sharing. Ecology 88:1605
4Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
5Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
6de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
7Jetz W, Sekercioglu CH, Böhning-Gaese K (2008) The Worldwide Variation in Avian Clutch Size across Species and Space PLoS Biol 6(12): e303. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060303
8Alerstam T, Rosén M, Bäckman J, Ericson PGP, Hellgren O (2007) Flight Speeds among Bird Species: Allometric and Phylogenetic Effects. PLoS Biol 5(8): e197. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050197
9The diet of king eiders wintering in Nuuk, Southwest Greenland, with reference to sympatric wintering common eiders, Flemming R. Merkel, Anders Mosbech, Sarah E. Jamieson, Knud Falk, Polar Biology Volume 30, Number 12, 1593-1597 (2007)
10POTAPOV, E. 2011. Gyrfalcon diet: Spatial and temporal variation In R. T. Watson, T. J. Cade, M. Fuller, G. Hunt, and E. Potapov (Eds.). Gyrfalcons and Ptarmigan in a Changing World. The Peregrine Fund, Boise, Idaho, USA
11Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0