Swan Goose

About the Swan Goose

The swan goose (Anser cygnoides) is a large goose with a natural breeding range in inland Mongolia, Northeast China, and the Russian Far East. It is migratory and winters mainly in central and eastern China. Vagrant birds are encountered in Japan and Korea (where it used to winter in numbers when it was more common), and more rarely in Kazakhstan, Laos, coastal Siberia, Taiwan, Thailand and Uzbekistan.

While uncommon in the wild, this species has been extensively domesticated, when it is known as Chinese goose. Introduced and feral populations of its domestic breeds occur in many places outside its natural range. The wild form is also kept in collections, and escapes are not unusual amongst feral flocks of other Anser and Branta geese.

The swan goose was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Anas cygnoid. The original spelling of "cygnoid." (with a fullstop, suggesting an abbreviation) is widely treated as an orthographic error to be corrected to "cygnoides", but some authors regard cygnoid (without the fullstop) to be the correct original spelling which should be used, citing... Wikipedia →