The king eider (pronounced ) (''Somateria spectabilis'') is a large sea duck that breeds along Northern Hemisphere Arctic coasts of northeast Europe,

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 the Car ...

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.

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 nomen ...

, Carl Linnaeus assigned it to the genus ''Anas'', along with the rest of the ducks. In 1819, William Elford Leach 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. The genus name ''Somateria'' is a combination of the Greek 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 Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

''spectabilis'' is Latin 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 Plac ...

; 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 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; 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 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 premier ...

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 Arctic. 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 range ...

and Russia, using a variety of tundra habitats. It winters in arctic and subarctic marine areas, most notably in the Bering Sea, the west coast of Greenland, eastern Canada and northern Norway. 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, Scotland and Kamchatka.

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 "t ...

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 feathers 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 in 1940, and shot in 1958 in Utqiagvik, Alaska.

Conservation and threats

Due to its large population and vast range, the king eider is listed as a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The king eider is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds ( AEWA) 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,

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.

Traditional uses

The king eider, or ''qengallek'' (pronounced ə.ˈŋaː.ɬək in Yup'ik, 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 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 The Alaska SeaLife Center, Alaska's premier public aquarium and Alaska's only permanent marine mammal rehabilitation facility, is located on the shores of Resurrection Bay in Seward in the U.S. state of Alaska. Open since May 1998, it is dedica ...

, 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