Back to families

GAVIIDAE - Divers or Loons (1:5)
GAVIA J.R. Forster, 1788 F - Colymbus imber Gunnerus; type by subsequent designation (J.A. Allen, 1907, Bull. American Museum of Natural History, 24, p. 35). = Colymbus immer Brünnich, 1764  1
Gavia stellata   (Pontoppidan, 1763) Red-throated Diver/Red-throated Loon
vN Eurasia and N North America >> N Atlantic and Pacific coasts (south to E China and NW Mexico); Black and Caspian Seas
Gavia arctica Black-throated Diver/Arctic Loon
arctica (Linnaeus, 1758)2 vN Eurasia (east to R. Lena) >> coastal Europe to SW and C Asia
viridigularis Dwight, 1918 vNE Siberia (west to R. Lena) to W Alaska (Seward Pen.) >> coastal E Asia and W North America
Gavia pacifica 3  (Lawrence, 1858) Pacific Loon/Pacific Diver
vNE Siberia (east from R. Kolyma), Alaska, N Canada (east to Baffin I.) >> coastal NE Asia and W North America to NW Mexico (Baja California and Sonora)
Gavia immer 4  (Brünnich, 1764) Great Northern Diver/Common Loon
i(a) British Isles and France (Bretagne); (b) N North America, Iceland >> coastal SW and E Canada, USA, NW Mexico
Gavia adamsii   (G.R. Gray, 1859) White-billed Diver/Yellow-billed Loon
iCoastal N Eurasia (east from Novaya Zemlya Is.), W and N Alaska, NW Canada (R. Mackenzie to W Hudson Bay) >> coastal W and N Europe; coastal N Pacific south to Japan and NW USA
1 For suppression of Colymbus Linnaeus, 1758, see Opinion 401 (I.C.Z.N., 1956) [I.C.Z.N., 1956 #9621].
2 Includes suschkini; see Storer (1979) [Storer, 1979 #3747].
3 For treatment as a separate species from G. arctica, see Flint & Kistchinski (1982) [Flint, 1982 #1574] and A.O.U. (1998) [A.O.U., 1998 #9].
4 Includes elasson; see Storer (1979, 1988) [Storer, 1979 #3747], [Storer, 1988 #13943]. Considered to form a superspecies with G. adamsii by Mayr & Short (1970) [Mayr, 1970 #2566].
Top