The eiders () are large seaducks in the

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 ...

''Somateria''. The three extant species all breed in the cooler latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The

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 and p ...

s of eider ducks and some other ducks and geese are used to fill pillows and

quilt A quilt is a multi-layered textile, traditionally composed of two or more layers of fabric or fiber. Commonly three layers are used with a filler material. These layers traditionally include a woven cloth top, a layer of padding, batting or w ...

s—they have given the name to the type of quilt known as an eiderdown.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Somateria '' was introduced in 1819 to accommodate the

king eider The king eider (pronounced ) (''Somateria spectabilis'') is a large Merginae, sea duck that breeds along Northern Hemisphere Arctic coasts of northeast Europe, North America and Palearctic, Asia. The birds spend most of the year in coastal marine ...

by the English zoologist William Leach in an appendix to John Ross's account of his voyage to look for the

Northwest Passage The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea lane between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, near the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Arctic Archipelago of Canada. The eastern route along the Arctic ...

. The name is derived from

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 ...

: ''sōma'' "body" (stem ''somat-'') and : ''erion'' "wool", referring to eiderdown. Steller's eider (''Polysticta stelleri'') is in a different genus despite its name.

Species

The genus contains three extant species. Two undescribed species are known from

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s, one from Middle

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch (geology), epoch of the Paleogene Geologic time scale, Period that extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that defin ...

rocks in

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

and another from the Late

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

or Early

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58The Barrow Duck-In The Barrow Duck-In was a civil disobedience event that occurred in Utqiaġvik, Alaska (known as Barrow from 1901 to 2016), in the spring of 1961."ANCSA paved way for Alaska Natives, state to prosper together". ''Alaska Journal''. https://www.alask ...

, a 1961 protest against game preservation laws in Alaska, when many eider ducks were shot out-of-season to provoke mass arrests.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q690813 Ducks