Bean Goose - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The English and scientific names of the Bean Goose come from its habit in the past of grazing in bean field stubbles in winter (Latin faba, a bean).

There are five subspecies, with complex variation in body size and bill size and pattern; generally, size increases from north to south and from west to east. Some ornithologists (including AOU 2007) split them into two species based on breeding habitat, whether in forest bogs in the subarctic taiga, or on the arctic tundra.

Taiga Bean Goose (Anser fabalis sensu stricto) (Latham, 1787)

• A. f. fabalis (Latham, 1787). Scandinavia east to the Urals. Large; bill long and narrow, with broad orange band. Anser fabalis fabalis is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.
• A. f. johanseni (Delacour, 1951). West Siberian taiga. Large; bill long and narrow, with narrow orange band.
• A. f. middendorffii (Severtzov, 1873). East Siberian taiga. Very large; bill long and stout, with narrow orange band.

Tundra Bean Goose (Anser serrirostris, if treated as a distinct species) (Swinhoe, 1871)

• A. s. rossicus (Buturlin, 1933). Northern Russian tundra east to the Taimyr Peninsula. Small; bill short and stubby, with narrow orange band. Anser fabalis rossicus is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.
• A. s. serrirostris (Swinhoe, 1871). East Siberian tundra. Large; bill long and stout, with narrow orange band.