Eider

This article is about the seaducks. For the river, see Eider (river). For other uses, see Eider (disambiguation).

The eiders (/ˈaɪ.dər/) are large seaducks in the genus Somateria. The three extant species all breed in the cooler latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.^[2]

Eider
King eider in breeding plumage
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Anseriformes
Family:	Anatidae
Subfamily:	Merginae
Genus:	Somateria Leach, 1819
Type species
Anas spectabilis (king eider) Linnaeus, 1758
Species
S. mollissima S. fischeri S. spectabilis
Synonyms
Eider Jarocki, 1819[1]

The down feathers of eider ducks and some other ducks and geese are used to fill pillows and quilts—they have given the name to the type of quilt known as an eiderdown.^[3]

Taxonomy

The genus Somateria was introduced in 1819 to accommodate the king eider by the English zoologist William Leach in an appendix to John Ross's account of his voyage to look for the Northwest Passage.^[4][5] The name is derived from Ancient Greek σῶμα : sōma "body" (stem somat-) and ἔριον : erion "wool", referring to eiderdown.^[6]

Steller's eider (Polysticta stelleri) is in a different genus despite its name.^[7]

Species

The genus contains three extant species.^[7]

Genus Somateria – Leach, 1819 – three species

Common name	Scientific name and subspecies	Range	Size and ecology	IUCN status and estimated population
Common eider Male Female	Somateria mollissima (Linnaeus, 1758) Six subspecies S. m. v-nigrum Bonaparte & Gray, GR, 1855 S. m. borealis (Brehm, CL, 1824) S. m. sedentaria Snyder, 1941 S. m. dresseri Sharpe, 1871 S. m. faeroeensis Brehm, CL, 1831 – Faroe Islands S. m. mollissima (Linnaeus, 1758)	northern coasts of Europe, North America and eastern Siberia	Size: Habitat: Diet:	NT
King eider Male Female	Somateria spectabilis (Linnaeus, 1758)	northeast Europe, North America and Asia	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Spectacled eider Male Female	Somateria fischeri (Brandt, 1847)	coasts of Alaska and northeastern Siberia.	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC

Two undescribed species are known from fossils, one from Middle Oligocene rocks in Kazakhstan^[8] and another from the Late Miocene or Early Pliocene of Lee Creek Mine, United States.^[9] The former may not actually belong in this genus.^{[citation needed]}

See also

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