Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Anseriformes > Anatidae > Mergus > Mergus merganser

Mergus merganser (Common Merganser)

Synonyms: Mergus castor
Language: French; Spanish

Wikipedia Abstract

The common merganser (North American) or goosander (Eurasian) (Mergus merganser) is a large duck of rivers and lakes in forested areas of Europe, northern and central Asia, and North America. 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" The common merganser eats fish and nests in holes in trees. John James Audubon also used the name "Buff-breasted Merganser" (in addition to "goosander") in his book The Birds of America.
View Wikipedia Record: Mergus merganser

Infraspecies

Mergus merganser americanus (American merganser)
Mergus merganser merganser (European goosander)
Mergus merganser orientalis (Asiatic goosander)

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
1
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
9
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 2.91447
EDGE Score: 1.36468
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Clutch Size [8]  10
Clutches / Year [4]  1
Fledging [6]  65 days
Global Population (2017 est.) [3]  1,400,000
Incubation [4]  30 days
Mating System [9]  Monogamy
Maximum Longevity [4]  15 years
Snout to Vent Length [6]  24 inches (62 cm)
Speed [10]  44.068 MPH (19.7 m/s)
Water Biome [1]  Lakes and Ponds, Rivers and Streams, Coastal, Brackish Water
Wing Span [10]  37 inches (.93 m)
Adult Weight [2]  3.164 lbs (1.435 kg)
Birth Weight [4]  46 grams
Female Weight [7]  2.716 lbs (1.232 kg)
Male Weight [7]  3.768 lbs (1.709 kg)
Weight Dimorphism [7]  38.7 %
Breeding Habitat [3]  Boreal forests, Temperate western forests, Temperate eastern forests
Wintering Geography [3]  Widespread U.S.
Wintering Habitat [3]  Freshwater lakes and rivers
Diet [5]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Carnivore (Vertebrates), Piscivore
Diet - Ectothermic [5]  10 %
Diet - Endothermic [5]  10 %
Diet - Fish [5]  70 %
Diet - Invertibrates [5]  10 %
Forages - Water Surface [5]  20 %
Forages - Underwater [5]  80 %
Female Maturity [4]  2 years
Male Maturity [4]  2 years

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

+ Click for partial list (100)Full list (658)

Ecosystems

Important Bird Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Aquila chrysaetos (Golden Eagle)[12]
Haliaeetus leucocephalus (Bald Eagle)[12]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 2Storchová, Lenka; Hořák, David (2018), Data from: Life-history characteristics of European birds, Dryad, Dataset, https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n6k3n
♦ 3Partners in Flight Avian Conservation Assessment Database, version 2017. Accessed on January 2018.
♦ 4de 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
♦ 5Hamish 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
♦ 6Nathan 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
♦ 7Palmer, RS 1962–1988 Handbook of North American Birds. Yale University Press, New Haven CT. Volumes 1–5
♦ 8Jetz 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
♦ 9Terje Lislevand, Jordi Figuerola, and Tamás Székely. 2007. Avian body sizes in relation to fecundity, mating system, display behavior, and resource sharing. Ecology 88:1605
♦ 10Alerstam 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
♦ 11Szoboszlai AI, Thayer JA, Wood SA, Sydeman WJ, Koehn LE (2015) Forage species in predator diets: synthesis of data from the California Current. Ecological Informatics 29(1): 45-56. Szoboszlai AI, Thayer JA, Wood SA, Sydeman WJ, Koehn LE (2015) Data from: Forage species in predator diets: synthesis of data from the California Current. Dryad Digital Repository.
♦ 12Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 13National Geographic Magazine - May 2016 - Yellowstone - The Carnivore Comeback
♦ 14Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
♦ 15International Flea Database
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
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