Scaly-sided merganser

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Scaly-sided merganser
Adult male
Adult female
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Anseriformes
Family: Anatidae
Genus: Mergus
Species:
M. squamatus
Binomial name
Mergus squamatus
Gould, 1864

The scaly-sided merganser or Chinese merganser (Mergus squamatus) is an

endangered typical merganser (genus Mergus). It lives in Manchuria and extreme Southeast Siberia
, breeding in the north and wintering in the south.

Description

This striking

sea duck has a thin red bill and a scaled dark pattern on the flanks and rump. Both sexes have a crest of wispy elongated feathers, reaching almost to the shoulders in adult males and being fairly short in females and immatures. The adult male has a black head and neck, white breast and underparts, and blackish mantle and wings, except for the white innerwings[verification needed]. The scaling is also black, while the tail is medium grey. The female has a buffish head and otherwise[verification needed] replaces the male's black with grey colour. The legs are orange-red and the irides dark brown in both sexes[verification needed
].

Ecology

Their breeding habitat is rivers in

primary forest in the southeastern Russian Far East, perhaps in North Korea, and in two locations Changbai Mountains and small isolated location in Lesser Xingan Mnts. in northeastern China. The bulk of the species' population breed in Russian Far East (85%) and Changbaishan both in China and DPRK[2][verification needed] M. squamatus are migratory, wintering in central and southern China,[3] with small numbers in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, northern Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand. They arrive on the breeding grounds as soon as winter is over, in March, and leave when the first cold nights come in mid November.[4]

This shy and easily startled bird favors mid-sized rivers which

ASL or less. Birds tend to move upriver during the day, both when startled and when foraging; the latter is probably because stirred-up sediments will alert and hide prey downstream. Food is caught with the serrated beak from among the riverbed gravel. Often the birds dive for prey, repeatedly submerging for a quarter-to half-minute with only a few seconds pause between dives. In shallow water, the birds submerge only the head; they do not upend. The birds are not very social during breeding period and they gather in small groups in autumn and winter. Even on the wintering grounds, groups of more than a dozen are very rare.[5]

They spend most of the daylight time foraging, except around noon when they take some time to rest,

Mesocottus haitej, or the Arctic grayling (Thymallus arcticus). Thus, they are opportunistic feeders; regarding fish, they will probably eat any species that has the correct elongated shape and small size.[5]

Scaly-sided mergansers nest in trees, as typical for the

balsam poplar).[5]
Easy breed in artificial nest boxes on the rivers with destroyed forests on banks.

They are

Merginae with which it shares its habitat then, e.g. common mergansers (M. merganser) and common goldeneyes (Bucephala clangula).[5]

Status

This

IUCN classification EN C2a(ii), fewer than 5000 adult and first and second year old birds remain, and most of these are found in Primorye and South Khabarovsk regions of Russia (85%)[4]

World population survey was completed in 2014 both in Russia and China, the number for North Korea was estimated without survey there. Surveys on dispersal wintering grounds are useless and the way to estimate world population is to survey pristine rivers within breeding range. Rivers of Central China, primarily tributaries of

Habitat loss in China led to breeding range reduction and fragmentation there.[6]
In Russia population seems to stabilize in 1900th and until now.

Threats and conservation measures

Winter ecology and conservation threats to the scaly-sided merganser were reported in 2012. Threats include sand mining, fishing, riparian vegetation destruction, habitat fragmentation, and water pollution. Recommended conservation measures include provision of artificial nest boxes,[7] informing local residents of the merganser's status, fishing regulation, protection of critical habitat, controlling recreation on breeding rivers and the raising of domestic ducks in areas where the mergansers winter, management of hydrology in ways that protect and benefit the merganser, and annual population surveys at key breeding rivers.[8]

See also

  • extinct
    waterfowl from the same region

References

  1. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017-3.RLTS.T22680488A118860238.en
    . Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  2. ^ Solovyeva D.V., Liu P., Antonov A.I., Averin A.A., Pronkevich V.V., Shokhrin V.P., Vartanyan S.L., Cranswick P.A. 2014. The population size and breeding range of the Scaly-sided Merganser Mergus squamatus. Bird Conserv Int. 24: 393–405.
  3. doi:10.1017/S0959270913000622
  4. ^ a b Zhengjie & Zhengjie (1998), BLI (2008), Solovyeva D.V., V. Afanasiev, J. W. Fox, V. Shokhrin & A. D. Fox. 2012. Use of geolocators reveals previously unknown Chinese and Korean scaly-sided merganser wintering sites. Endangered Species Research 17: 217–225.
  5. ^ a b c d Zhengjie & Zhengjie (1998) Solovieva, D.V. 2002. Foraging behaviour and daily time budget of Scaly-sided Merganser Mergus squamatus breeding on the Iman River, Russia. Wildfowl 53: 205–13.
  6. ^ Fen-Qi et al. (2002), BLI (2006, 2008), Solovyeva et al. 2014
  7. ^ Solovyeva, D.V., Vartanayan, S.L., & N. I-F. Vartanayan. 2013. Artificial nest-sites for Scaly-sided Merganser Mergus squamatus (Gould, 1864) – a way to breeding habitat restoration. Amurian zoological journal V(2): 201–207.
  8. ^ Shao, Mingqin; Zeng, Binbin; Tim, Hounsome; Chen, Lixin; You, Chaying; Wang, Hongbin; Dai, Nianhua. 2012. Winter Ecology and Conservation Threats of Scaly-sided Merganser Mergus squamatus in Poyang Lake Watershed, China. Pakistan J. Zool. 44(2): 503–510. Solovyeva D.V., Liu P., Antonov A.I., Averin A.A., Pronkevich V.V., Shokhrin V.P., Vartanyan S.L., Cranswick P.A. 2014. The population size and breeding range of the Scaly-sided Merganser Mergus squamatus. Bird Conserv Int. 24: 393–405.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mergus squamatus.
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