Steller's eider | |
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Male (drake) | |
Female (hen) | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Anseriformes |
Family: | Anatidae |
Genus: | Polysticta Eyton, 1836 |
Species: | P. stelleri
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Binomial name | |
Polysticta stelleri (Pallas, 1769)
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Steller's eider (Polysticta stelleri) is a migrating Arctic diving duck that breeds along the coastlines of eastern Russia and Alaska. It is the rarest, smallest, and fastest flying of the eider species.[3]
Due to the extensive contraction of its breeding range, the Alaska-breeding population of Steller's eider was listed as vulnerable in 1997 by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).[4] The species is protected in Russia and the U.S. and is the subject of an ongoing recovery plan by the European Union and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.[4][5]