The king eider (pronounced ) (''Somateria spectabilis'') is a large

sea duck The sea ducks (''Mergini'') are a tribe of the duck subfamily of birds, the Anatinae. The taxonomy of this group is incomplete. Some authorities separate the group as a subfamily, while others remove some genera. Most species within the group sp ...

that breeds along Northern Hemisphere Arctic coasts of northeast

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

. The birds spend most of the year in coastal marine ecosystems at high latitudes, and migrate to

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...

tundra In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless mou ...

to breed in June and July. They lay four to seven eggs in a scrape on the ground lined with grass and down.

Taxonomy and etymology

When he first described the king eider in 1758, in the 10th edition of his opus

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial ...

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

assigned it to the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

''Anas'', along with the rest of the

duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form ...

s. In 1819,

William Elford Leach William Elford Leach FRS (2 February 1791 – 25 August 1836) was an English zoologist and marine biologist. Life and work Elford Leach was born at Hoe Gate, Plymouth, the son of an attorney. At the age of twelve he began a medical appre ...

moved it and the other large eiders to the genus '' Somateria'', where it has remained since. It is very closely related to the other members of its genus, and is known to hybridise with the common eider. Despite its very large range, it is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...

. The genus name ''Somateria'' is a combination of the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

words ''sōma'', meaning "body", and ''erion'', meaning "wool"; the combination (i.e. "wooly body") is a reference to the eider's famously thick, soft down. The specific name ''spectabilis'' is

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

for "showy", "remarkable" or "worth seeing", a reference to the handsomeness of the adult male's

plumage Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...

. The bird's

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contrast ...

, king eider, is a direct translation of its Icelandic name. It is called "king" because of the orange, crown-like knob above the male's

bill Bill(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States) * Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature * Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer * Bill, a bird or animal's beak Pla ...

; the male's multicoloured plumage also suggests royal robes. "Eider" is a Dutch, German or Swedish word derived from the Icelandic word ''æður'' (meaning eider), itself derived from the Old Norse ''æthr''.

Description

The king eider is a large sea duck, measuring in length with a

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan o ...

of . Males are, on average, heavier than females, with a mean weight of for males and for females. An individual bird's mass can vary considerably from season to season—from as little as to as much as . Like all eiders, the species is

sexually dimorphic Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most ani ...

; the male is slightly larger and, in breeding

, much more colourful than the female. The male is unmistakable with its mostly black body, buff-tinged white breast and multicoloured head. The head, nape and neck are a pale bluish grey. The cheek is pale green. The bill, separated from the face by a thin black line, is red with a white

nail Nail or Nails may refer to: In biology * Nail (anatomy), toughened protective protein-keratin (known as alpha-keratin, also found in hair) at the end of an animal digit, such as fingernail * Nail (beak), a plate of hard horny tissue at the tip ...

and a large, distinctive yellow knob. Some tertials are curved up and form "spurs" along the back. The female (occasionally colloquially referred to as a "queen eider") is a warm brown colour overall, slightly paler on the head and neck. The

feather Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates and a premie ...

s on her upperparts and flanks are marked with blackish chevrons, while those on her neck and head bear fine black streaks. She has a buffy spot at the base of her bill and a buffy eye ring which extends into a downward curving stripe behind her eye. Her bill is variously described as black or grey, and her legs and feet are greenish grey. Juvenile birds are greyish brown. Late in their first autumn, young males moult into a darker plumage, with white on the breast and rump; it takes them three years to achieve full adult plumage.

Habitat and range

The king eider is circumpolar, found throughout the

. It breeds on the Arctic coast of Alaska, Canada, Greenland,

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group rang ...

and Russia, using a variety of

habitats. It winters in arctic and subarctic marine areas, most notably in the Bering Sea, the west coast of Greenland, eastern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

and northern

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

. Wintering birds can form large flocks on suitable coastal waters, with some flocks exceeding 100,000 birds. It also occurs annually off the northeastern

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

and

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and west ...

Behaviour

Food and feeding

The king eider's foraging strategies change depending on the season. For much of the year, it is at sea; there, it dives for

benthic The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from ancient Greek, βένθος (bénthos), meaning " ...

invertebrates. During the breeding season, it does more of its foraging on freshwater lakes and ponds, where it dabbles, feeding primarily on small invertebrates plucked from the surface of the water. It feeds on mollusks, crustaceans like king crabs, and on sea urchins, starfish and sea anemones.

Breeding

The female builds a

scrape nest A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American robin or Eurasian blac ...

on the ground, usually near water. She lines it with vegetation and

down feather The down of birds is a layer of fine feathers found under the tougher exterior feathers. Very young birds are clad only in down. Powder down is a specialized type of down found only in a few groups of birds. Down is a fine thermal insulator an ...

s from her own body. She lays a

clutch A clutch is a mechanical device that engages and disengages power transmission, especially from a drive shaft to a driven shaft. In the simplest application, clutches connect and disconnect two rotating shafts (drive shafts or line shafts). ...

of , which she alone incubates for 22 to . The young are raised collectively by the females.

Voice

The male's song is a quavering, dove-like cooing, transcribed as ''croo-croo-croo'' or ''hoo-hoo-hooo''. The female makes a variety of low clucks, grunts and growls.

Longevity

The oldest known king eider was a female that lived at least 18 years 11 months. She was ringed (banded) as an adult south of

Gambell, Alaska Gambell ( ess, Sivuqaq, russian: Гамбелл) is a city in the Nome Census Area of the U.S. state of Alaska. Located on St. Lawrence Island, it had a population of 640 at the 2020 census, down slightly from 649 in 2000. History ''S ...

in 1940, and shot in 1958 in

Utqiagvik, Alaska Utqiagvik ( ik, Utqiaġvik; , , formerly known as Barrow ()) is the borough seat and largest city of the North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Located north of the Arctic Circle, it is one of the northernmost cities and towns in the ...

Conservation and threats

Due to its large population and vast range, the king eider is listed as a species of

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. ...

by the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

. The king eider is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (

AEWA The Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds, or African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) is an independent international treaty developed under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme's Conventio ...

) applies. As eggs and young, king eiders have many predators, including

glaucous gull The glaucous gull (''Larus hyperboreus'') is a large gull, the second-largest gull in the world. It breeds in Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and winters south to shores of the Holarctic. The genus name is from Latin ''larus'', which a ...

common raven The common raven (''Corvus corax'') is a large all-black passerine bird. It is the most widely distributed of all corvids, found across the Northern Hemisphere. It is a raven known by many names at the subspecies level; there are at least ...

parasitic jaeger The parasitic jaeger (''Stercorarius parasiticus''), also known as the Arctic skua, Arctic jaeger or parasitic skua, is a seabird in the skua family Stercorariidae. It is a migratory species that breeds in Northern Scandinavia, Scotland, Iceland ...

and

Arctic fox The Arctic fox (''Vulpes lagopus''), also known as the white fox, polar fox, or snow fox, is a small fox native to the Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and common throughout the Arctic tundra biome. It is well adapted to living in ...

Traditional uses

The king eider, or ''qengallek'' (pronounced ə.ˈŋaː.ɬək in

Yup'ik The Yup'ik or Yupiaq (sg & pl) and Yupiit or Yupiat (pl), also Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Central Yup'ik, Alaskan Yup'ik ( own name ''Yup'ik'' sg ''Yupiik'' dual ''Yupiit'' pl; russian: Юпики центральной Аляски), are an I ...

, is a regular source of fresh meat in the spring. They begin their migration past the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in late April and are hunted in great numbers. In May, several hundred thousand king eiders pass Point Barrow in northern Alaska on their way to Alaskan and Canadian breeding grounds.

Gallery

File:King Eiders.jpg, King eiders (male and female) in natural habitat in

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...

wildlife refuge File:Somateria spectabilis (King Eider - Prachteiderente) - Weltvogelpark Walsrode 2012-15.jpg, The conspicuous head of a male File:Somateria spectabilis (King Eider - Prachteiderente) - Weltvogelpark Walsrode 2012-43.jpg, The gait of a king eider at

Weltvogelpark Walsrode Weltvogelpark Walsrode, known as Walsrode Bird Park or Jubs in English until 2010, is a bird park located in the middle of the Lüneburg Heath in North Germany within the municipality of Bomlitz near Walsrode in the state of Lower Saxony, Germany ...

(Walsrode Bird Park) File:King Eider RWD.jpg, Female at Alaska Sea Life Center, Seward, Alaska Somateria spectabilis MHNT.ZOO.2010.11.27.3.jpg, ''Somateria spectabilis'' - MHNT

References

Cited works

* * * * * *

Identification and ageing

* * * *

External links

King eider text, map and photographs
a
Oiseaux.net
* * * * * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q207846 king eider Birds of the Arctic king eider king eider Extant Pleistocene first appearances Holarctic birds