''Chloephaga'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of sheldgeese in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Anatidae The Anatidae are the biological family (biology), family of water birds that includes ducks, goose, geese, and swans. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on all the world's continents except Antarctica. These birds are adapted f ...

. Other sheldgeese are found in the genera ''

Alopochen ''Alopochen'' is a genus of the bird family (biology), family Anatidae, part of the subfamily Tadorninae along with the shelducks. It contains one extant species, the Egyptian goose (''Alopochen aegyptiaca''), and three which became extinct in t ...

'' and ''

Neochen ''Neochen'' is a genus of birds in the family Anatidae. Extant species The genus contains a single living species: Fossil species * †''Neochen barbadiana'' - Late Pleistocene, Barbados * †''Neochen debilis'' - Middle Pleistocene, Arge ...

''.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Chloephaga'' was introduced in 1838 by the English naturalist

Thomas Campbell Eyton Thomas Campbell Eyton JP, DL (10 September 1809 – 25 October 1880) was an English naturalist whose fields were cattle, fishes and birds. He was a friend and correspondent of Charles Darwin though he opposed his theories. Eyton was born at ...

in his ''A Monograph on the Anatidae, or Duck Tribe''. He designated the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

as ''Chloephaga magellanica''. This is ''Anas magellanica'' Gmelin, JF 1789, which is a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

of ''Anas leucoptera'' Gmelin, JF 1789. ''Anas leucoptera'' is now considered as a

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

of the

upland goose The upland goose or Magellan goose (''Chloephaga picta'') is a sheldgoose of the Tadorninae, shelduck-sheldgoose subfamily of the Anatidae, the biological Family (biology), family that includes the ducks and most duck-like waterfowl such as the G ...

''Chloephaga picta leucoptera''. The genus name comes from the combination of the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

''khloē'' meaning "grass" with ''-phagos'' meaning "-eating". A

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

study by Mariana Bulgarella and collaborators published in 2014 found that the

Orinoco goose The Orinoco goose (''Neochen jubata'') is a Near Threatened species of waterfowl in the tribe Tadornini of subfamily Anserinae.HBW and BirdLife International (2021) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist ...

in the

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 "unisp ...

genus ''Neochen'', was embedded in the genus ''Chloephaga'': Based on this result, some authorities place the Orinoco goose together with the

Andean goose The Andean goose (''Chloephaga melanoptera'') is a species of waterfowl in tribe Tadornini of subfamily Anserinae.HBW and BirdLife International (2021) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds ...

in the resurrected genus ''Oressochen''. A fossilized partial

coracoid A coracoid is a paired bone which is part of the shoulder assembly in all vertebrates except therian mammals (marsupials and placentals). In therian mammals (including humans), a coracoid process is present as part of the scapula, but this is n ...

(CTES-PZ 7797) of an indeterminate ''Chloephaga'' species sharing some characters with the extant

is known from the

upper Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch with ...

Toropí Formation (also called the Yupoí Formation) in

Corrientes Province Corrientes (, ‘currents’ or ‘streams’; ), officially the Province of Corrientes (; ) is a Provinces of Argentina, province in northeast Argentina, in the Mesopotamia, Argentina, Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by (from the north, cl ...

, Argentina, 700 kilometers further north than the northernmost present-day record of the genus.

Species

The genus contains five species.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q367753 * Geese Taxa named by Thomas Campbell Eyton