Editing Common merganser (section)

==Taxonomy==
The first [[Species description|formal description]] of the common merganser was written by Swedish naturalist [[Carl Linnaeus]] in 1758 in the [[10th edition of Systema Naturae|10th edition]] of his ''[[Systema Naturae]]''. He introduced the current [[binomial nomenclature|binomial name]] ''Mergus merganser''.<ref>{{cite book | last=Linnaeus | first=C. | author-link=Carl Linnaeus | year=1758 | title= Systema Naturæ per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis, Volume 1| volume=v.1 | edition=10th | page=129 | publisher=Holmiae:Laurentii Salvii  | language=la | url= https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/727034 }}</ref>  The genus name is a [[Latin]] word used by [[Pliny the Elder|Pliny]] and other [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] authors to refer to an unspecified waterbird, and ''merganser'' is derived from ''mergus'' and ''anser'', Latin for "goose".<ref name= job90>{{cite book | last= Jobling | first= James A | year= 2010| title= The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names | url= https://archive.org/details/Helm_Dictionary_of_Scientific_Bird_Names_by_James_A._Jobling | publisher = Christopher Helm | location = London | isbn = 978-1-4081-2501-4 |pages =[https://archive.org/details/Helm_Dictionary_of_Scientific_Bird_Names_by_James_A._Jobling/page/n250 250]&ndash;251}}</ref> In 1843 [[John James Audubon]] used the name "Buff-breasted Merganser" in addition to "goosander" in his book ''[[The Birds of America]]''.<ref name=Audubon/>

The three [[subspecies]] differ in only minor detail:<ref name=Hoyo/><ref name=Madge/>
{| class="wikitable"
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! Image !! Subspecies!!  Description !! Distribution
|-
|[[File:Mergus merganser EM1B8635 (49757930576).jpg|120px]] ||''M. m. merganser'' – <small>[[Carl Linnaeus|Linnaeus]], 1758</small> || ||Throughout northern Europe and northern Asiatic Russia.
|-
|[[File:Common Merganser (Mergus merganser) (46323801944).jpg|120px]]|| ''M. m. orientalis'' – <small>[[John Gould|Gould]], 1845</small> (syn. ''M. m. comatus'' – <small>[[Tommaso Salvadori|Salvadori]], 1895</small>) || Slightly larger than ''M. m. merganser'', it has a more slender bill.||  Central Asian mountains. 
|-
|[[File:062 - COMMON MERGANSER (1-5-13) patagonia lake, scc, az (1) (8717954203).jpg|120px]]|| ''M. m. americanus'' – <small>[[John Cassin|Cassin]], 1852</small> || Its bill is broader-based than in ''M. m. merganser'', and a black bar crosses the white inner wing (visible in flight) on males. ||found in North America. 
|-
|}