Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Anseriformes > Anatidae > Mergus > Mergus serrator

Mergus serrator (Red-breasted Merganser)

Synonyms: Mergus serrator schioleri; Mergus serrator serrator
Language: French; Spanish

Wikipedia Abstract

The red-breasted merganser (Mergus serrator) is a diving duck, one of the sawbills. The genus name is a Latin word used by Pliny and other Roman authors to refer to an unspecified waterbird, and serrator is a sawyer from Latin serra, "saw".
View Wikipedia Record: Mergus serrator

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
1
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
10
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 3.03322
EDGE Score: 1.39457
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  2.385 lbs (1.082 kg)
Birth Weight [3]  72 grams
Female Weight [7]  2.002 lbs (908 g)
Male Weight [7]  2.502 lbs (1.135 kg)
Weight Dimorphism [7]  25 %
Breeding Habitat [2]  Arctic tundra, Boreal forests, Arctic coastal
Wintering Geography [2]  Coastal U.S./Canada
Wintering Habitat [2]  Coastal marine, Beaches and estuaries
Diet [4]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Piscivore, Herbivore
Diet - Fish [4]  70 %
Diet - Invertibrates [4]  20 %
Diet - Plants [4]  10 %
Forages - Water Surface [4]  20 %
Forages - Underwater [4]  80 %
Clutch Size [8]  10
Clutches / Year [6]  1
Fledging [5]  61 days
Global Population (2017 est.) [2]  370,000
Incubation [6]  32 days
Mating System [3]  Monogamy
Maximum Longevity [6]  21 years 3 months
Snout to Vent Length [5]  22 inches (55 cm)
Speed [9]  44.739 MPH (20 m/s)
Wing Span [9]  34 inches (.87 m)
Female Maturity [6]  2 years
Male Maturity [6]  2 years

Protected Areas

+ Click for partial list (100)Full list (311)

Ecosystems

Important Bird Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
California Floristic Province Mexico, United States No
Caucasus Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Russia, Turkey No
Indo-Burma Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam No
Japan Japan No
Mediterranean Basin Algeria, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Portugal, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey No

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Haliaeetus leucocephalus (Bald Eagle)[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
♦ 7Palmer, RS 1962–1988 Handbook of North American Birds. Yale University Press, New Haven CT. Volumes 1–5
♦ 8A comparative study of egg mass and clutch size in the Anseriformes, Jordi Figuerola and Andy J. Green, J Ornithol (2006) 147: 57–68
♦ 9Alerstam 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
♦ 10Jorrit 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.
♦ 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.
♦ 12Food web topology and parasites in the pelagic zone of a subarctic lake, Per-Arne Amundsen, Kevin D. Lafferty, Rune Knudsen, Raul Primicerio, Anders Klemetsen and Armand M. Kuris, Journal of Animal Ecology 2009, 78, 563–572
♦ 13Cirtwill, Alyssa R.; Eklöf, Anna (2018), Data from: Feeding environment and other traits shape species' roles in marine food webs, Dataset, https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1mv20r6
♦ 14Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
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