Appearance
The adult red-breasted merganser is 51–62 cm long with a 70–86 cm wingspan. The red-breasted merganser weight ranges from 28.2-47.6 oz.It has a spiky crest and long thin red bill with serrated edges. The male has a dark head with a green sheen, a white neck with a rusty breast, a black back, and white underparts. Adult females have a rusty head and a greyish body. The juvenile is like the female, but lacks the white collar and has a smaller white wing patch.
Naming
The genus name is a Latin word used by Pliny and other Roman authors to refer to an unspecified waterbird, and ''serrator'' is a sawyer from Latin ''serra'', "saw".The red-breasted merganser was one of the many bird species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'', where it was given the binomial name ''Mergus serrator''.
Status
The red-breasted merganser is one of the species to which the ''Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds'' applies.
Reproduction
Its breeding habitat is freshwater lakes and rivers across northern North America, Greenland, Europe, and the Palearctic. It nests in sheltered locations on the ground near water. It is migratory and many northern breeders winter in coastal waters further south.
Food
Red-breasted mergansers dive and swim underwater. They mainly eat small fish, but also aquatic insects, crustaceans, and frogs.References:
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