Whooper Swan

About the Whooper Swan

The whooper swan (/ˈhuːpə(ɹ) swɒn/ "hooper swan"; Cygnus cygnus), is a large northern hemisphere swan. It is the Eurasian counterpart of the North American trumpeter swan. Francis Willughby and John Ray's Ornithology of 1676 referred to this swan as "the Elk, Hooper, or wild Swan". It was one of the many bird species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in the 1758 10th edition of his Systema Naturae, where it was given the binomial name of Anas cygnus. The species name is from cygnus, the Latin for "swan", and the type species for the genus Cygnus. This swan is monotypic with no subspecies.

The old name 'elk', which is not related to the deer species of the same name, derives from Old Norse elft, and also survives in modern Icelandic name for the species álft; it is cognate with the Latin albus, 'white'. The whooper swan is similar in appearance to Bewick's swan. It is larger, however, at a length of 140–165 centimetres (55–65 inches) and a wingspan of 205–275 cm (81–108 in), similar in size to the mute swan. The weight is typically in the range of 7.4–14.0 kilograms (16+1⁄4–30+3⁄4 pounds), with an average of 9.8–11.4 kg (21+1⁄2–25+1⁄4 lb) for males... Wikipedia →