2012 Photo Contest   Wildlife Category (7944829792)🐦

Photo: Seney Natural History Association · CC BY-SA 2.0

SpeciesGaviiformesGaviidae
Birds

🐦Common loon

Gavia immer (Brunnich, 1764)

The common loon or great northern diver is a large member of the loon, or diver, family of birds. Breeding adults have a plumage that includes a broad black head and neck with a greenish, purplish, or bluish sheen, blackish or blackish-grey upperparts, and pure white underparts except some black on the undertail coverts and vent. Non-breeding adults are brownish with a dark neck and head marked with dark grey-brown. Their upperparts are dark brownish-grey with an unclear pattern of squares on the shoulders, and the underparts, lower face, chin, and throat are whitish. The sexes look alike, though males are significantly heavier than females. During the breeding season, loons live on lakes and other waterways in Canada, the northern United States, and southern parts of Greenland and Iceland. Small numbers breed on Svalbard and sporadically elsewhere in Arctic Eurasia. Common loons winter on both coasts of North America as far north as Newfoundland and Alaska, and as far south as Mexico, as well as on the Atlantic coast of Europe.

Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Videos
14
Photos
9
Measurements
13
vs you
≈ 1/13th of your weight
Also called
Great Northern Diver, great northern loon, Great Northern Loon
Conservation status
LCLeast concern

IUCN Red List assessment, 2018.

Population trendStable
Key measurements
Body mass
4.96 kg
Body length
not recorded
Shoulder height
not recorded
Top speed
not recorded
Bite force
not recorded
Maximum lifespan
24 years
All measurements ↓
Facts and figures

Everything we know about the Common loon

Typical adult figures. Where a value is an estimate rather than a measurement, it says so.

Body mass
4.96 kg
AVONET
Other figures ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

By sex

  • Male5.46 kgWikidataQ190342
  • Female4.5 kgWikidataQ190342

Figures vary

  • 3.4 kgAnAgeAnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR)data quality: acceptable
Tail length
0.06 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Wing length
0.37 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Beak length
0.1 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Tarsus length
0.09 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Maximum lifespan
24 years
AnAge
Details ↓

data quality: acceptable

Source: AnAge · AnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR) · CC BY 3.0

Gestation
28 days
AnAge
Details ↓

data quality: acceptable

Source: AnAge · AnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR) · CC BY 3.0

Litter size
about 2
AnAge
Details ↓

data quality: acceptable

Source: AnAge · AnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR) · CC BY 3.0

Trophic level
Carnivore
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Habitat
Wetland
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Lifestyle
Aquatic
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Danger to humans
harmless
SeaLifeBase
Details ↓

Source: SeaLifeBase · v25.04 · CC BY-NC 4.0

Volume l
5 Laverage
Details ↓

Body mass at ~1.0 kg/L, the density of vertebrate tissue.

average = a mean across sexes or species in a group.

Not recorded for Common loon yet: body length, shoulder height, top speed, bite force.

Where it sits

Family tree

  1. kingdomAnimalia
  2. ›phylumChordata
  3. ›classAves
  4. ›orderGaviiformes
  5. ›familyGaviidae
  6. ›genusGavia
  7. ›speciesGavia immer
Full lineage
  1. classBirds · Aves
  2. orderGaviiformes
  3. familyGaviidae
  4. genusGavia
All 12 branches ↓
  1. kingdomMetazoa
  2. phylumChordata
  3. subphylumCraniata
  4. subphylumVertebrata
  5. superclassGnathostomata
  6. superclassSarcopterygii
  7. superclassTetrapoda
  8. orderSauria
  9. classBirds · Aves
  10. orderGaviiformes
  11. familyGaviidae
  12. genusGavia
More

More about the Common loon

In other languages
Eistaucher (de), calàbria grossa (ca), potáplice lední (cs), Islom (da), Colimbo grande (es), amerikanjääkuikka (fi) … and 27 more languages

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