Swans are
birds of the
family Anatidae within the genus
Cygnus. The swans' close relatives include the
geese and
ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the
subfamily Anserinae where they form the
tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily,
Cygninae. There are six or seven species of swan in the genus
Cygnus; in addition there is another species known as the
coscoroba swan, although this species is no longer considered one of the true swans. Swans usually
mate for life,
though "divorce" does sometimes occur, particularly following nesting
failure. And if a mate dies, or is killed by a predator, the remaining
mate will take up with another; however, if all goes well in the
pairing, they indeed will stay together for life. The number of
eggs in each
clutch ranges from three to eight.
Etymology and terminology
The word swan is derived from
Old English swan, akin to the
German Schwan and
Dutch zwaan and
Swedish svan, in turn derived from
Indo-European root
*swen (to sound, to sing).
[1] Young swans are known as
swanlings or as
cygnets, from
Greek κύκνος,
kýknos and from the
Latin word
cygnus ("swan") and the Old French suffix -
et ("little"). An adult male is a
cob, from Middle English
cobbe (leader of a group); an adult female is a
pen.
Description
The swans are the largest members of the waterfowl family
Anatidae, and are among the largest flying birds. The largest species, including the
mute swan,
trumpeter swan, and
whooper swan,
can reach a length of over 1.5 m (60 inches) and weigh over 15 kg (33
pounds). Their wingspans can be almost 3 m (10 ft). Compared to the
closely related geese, they are much larger and have proportionally
larger feet and necks.
[2] Adults also have a patch of unfeathered skin between the eyes and bill. The sexes are alike in
plumage, but males are generally bigger and heavier than females.
The Northern Hemisphere species of swan have pure white plumage but
the Southern Hemisphere species are mixed black and white. The
Australian
black swan (
Cygnus atratus)
is completely black except for the white flight feathers on its wings;
the chicks of black swans are light grey. The South American
black-necked swan has a white body with a black neck.
The legs of swans are normally a dark blackish grey colour, except
for the two South American species, which have pink legs. Bill colour
varies: the four
subarctic
species have black bills with varying amounts of yellow, and all the
others are patterned red and black. Although most birds generally do not
have teeth, swans are known to be an exception to this, having small
jagged 'teeth' as part of their beaks used for catching and eating fish.
The mute swan and black-necked swan have a lump at the base of the bill
on the upper mandible.
[citation needed]
Distribution and movements
The swans are generally found in temperate environments, rarely
occurring in the tropics. A group of swans is called a bevy or a wedge
in flight. Four (or five) species occur in the
Northern Hemisphere, one species is found in
Australia and
New Zealand and one species is distributed in southern South America. They are absent from tropical
Asia,
Central America, northern
South America and the entirety of
Africa. One species, the
mute swan, has been
introduced to
North America, Australia and New Zealand.
[2]
Several species are
migratory,
either wholly or partly so. The mute swan is a partial migrant, being
resident over areas of Western Europe but wholly migratory in Eastern
Europe and Asia. The whooper swan and tundra swan are wholly migratory,
and the trumpeter swans are almost entirely migratory.
[2] There is some evidence that the
black-necked swan
is migratory over part of its range, but detailed studies have not
established whether these movements are long or short range migration.
[3]
Behaviour
Swans feed in the water and on land. They are almost entirely
herbivorous, although they may eat small amounts of aquatic animals. In
the water food is obtained by up-ending or dabbling, and their diet is
composed of the roots, tubers, stems and leaves of aquatic and submerged
plants.
[2]
Although swans only reach sexual maturity between 4 and 7 years of age, they can form socially
monogamous pair bonds from as early as 20 months that last for many years,
[4] and in some cases these can last for life.
[5] The lifespan of the mute swan is often over 10 years, and sometimes over 20, whereas the
black-necked swan survives for less than a decade in captivity.
[6] These bonds are maintained year round, even in gregarious and migratory species like the
tundra swan, which congregate in large flocks in the wintering grounds.
[7]
The nest is on the ground near water and about a metre across. Unlike
many other ducks and geese the male helps with the nest construction.
Average egg size (for the mute swan) is 113×74 mm, weighing 340 g, in a
clutch size of 4 to 7, and an incubation period of 34–45 days.
[8] With the exception of the
whistling ducks they are the only
anatids where the males aid in
incubating the eggs.
Swans are known to aggressively protect their nests. One man was suspected to have drowned in such an attack.
[9][10]
Systematics and evolution
Black swan and cygnet
Evidence suggests that the genus
Cygnus evolved in Europe or western Eurasia during the
Miocene, spreading all over the Northern Hemisphere until the
Pliocene. When the southern species branched off is not known. The mute swan apparently is closest to the Southern Hemisphere
Cygnus (del Hoyo et al., eds,
Handbook of the Birds of the World);
its habits of carrying the neck curved (not straight) and the wings
fluffed (not flush) as well as its bill color and knob indicate that its
closest living relative is the black swan. Given the
biogeography and appearance of the
subgenus Olor
it seems likely that these are of a more recent origin, as evidence
shows by their modern ranges (which were mostly uninhabitable during the
last ice age) and great similarity between the taxa.
Species
Genus Cygnus
- Subgenus Cygnus
- Mute swan, Cygnus olor,
is a Eurasian species that occurs at lower latitudes than whooper swan
and Bewick's swan across Europe into southern Russia, China and the
Russian Maritimes. Recent fossil records, according to the British
Ornithological Union, show Cygnus olor is among the oldest bird
species still extant and it has been upgraded to "native" status in
several European countries, since this bird has been found in fossil and
bog specimens dating back thousands of years. Common temperate Eurasian
species, often semi-domesticated descendants of domestic flocks, are
naturalized in the United States and elsewhere.
- Subgenus Chenopis
- Black swan, Cygnus atratus of Australia, and introduced in New Zealand
- Subgenus Sthenelides
- Subgenus Olor
- Whooper swan, Cygnus cygnus breeds in Iceland and subarctic Europe and Asia, migrating to temperate Europe and Asia in winter
- Trumpeter swan, Cygnus buccinator
is the largest North American swan. Very similar to the whooper swan
(and sometimes treated as a subspecies of it), it was hunted almost to extinction but has since recovered
- Tundra swan, Cygnus columbianus is a small swan that breeds on the North American tundra, further north than the trumpeter swan. It winters in the USA.
- Bewick's swan, Cygnus (columbianus) bewickii
is the Eurasian form that migrates from Arctic Russia to western Europe
and eastern Asia (China, Japan) in winter. It is often considered a
subspecies of C. columbianus, creating the species tundra swan.
The
fossil record of the genus
Cygnus
is quite impressive, although allocation to the subgenera is often
tentative; as indicated above, at least the early forms probably belong
to the
C. olor – Southern Hemisphere lineage, whereas the Pleistocene taxa from North America would be placed in
Olor. A number of prehistoric species have been described, mostly from the Northern Hemisphere. Among them was the giant
Siculo-
Maltese C. falconeri, which was taller (though not heavier) than the contemporary local dwarf elephants (
Elephas falconeri).
The supposed fossil swans
"Cygnus" bilinicus and
"Cygnus" herrenthalsi were, respectively, a
stork and some large bird of unknown affinity (due to the bad state of preservation of the referred material).
Anser atavus is sometimes placed in
Cygnus.
The
coscoroba swan (
Coscoroba coscoroba)
from South America, the only species of its genus, is apparently not a
true swan. Its phylogenetic position is not fully resolved; it is in
some aspects more similar to
geese and
shelducks.
In culture
Many of the cultural aspects refer to the mute swan of Europe. Perhaps the best known story about a swan is "
The Ugly Duckling"
fairytale. Swans are often a symbol of love or fidelity because of
their long-lasting, apparently monogamous relationships. See the famous
swan-related operas
Lohengrin and
Parsifal. Swan meat was regarded as a luxury food in England in the reign of
Elizabeth I.
A recipe for baked swan survives from that time: "To bake a Swan Scald
it and take out the bones, and parboil it, then season it very well with
Pepper, Salt and Ginger, then lard it, and put it in a deep Coffin of
Rye Paste with store of Butter, close it and bake it very well, and when
it is baked, fill up the Vent-hole with melted Butter, and so keep it;
serve it in as you do the Beef-Pie."
[12]
Swans feature strongly in
mythology. In
Greek mythology, the story of
Leda and the Swan recounts that
Helen of Troy was conceived in a union of
Zeus disguised as a swan and
Leda, Queen of
Sparta. Other references in classical literature include the belief that upon death the otherwise-silent
mute swan would sing beautifully—hence the phrase
swan song; as well as
Juvenal's
sarcastic reference to a good woman being a "rare bird, as rare on
earth as a black swan", from which we get the Latin phrase
rara avis, rare bird. The mute swan is also one of the sacred birds of
Apollo,
whose associations stem both from the nature of the bird as a symbol of
light as well as the notion of a "swan song". The god is often depicted
riding a chariot pulled by or composed of swans in his ascension from
Delos.
The
Irish legend of the
Children of Lir is about a stepmother transforming her children into swans for 900 years. In the legend
The Wooing of Etain, the king of the
Sidhe
(subterranean-dwelling, supernatural beings) transforms himself and the
most beautiful woman in Ireland, Etain, into swans to escape from the
king of Ireland and Ireland's armies. The swan has recently been
depicted on an
Irish commemorative coin.
Swans are also present in Irish literature in the poetry of
W.B. Yeats.
"The Wild Swans at Coole" has a heavy focus on the mesmerising characteristics of the swan. Yeats also recounts the myth of Leda and the Swan in
the poem of the same name.
In
Norse mythology, there are two swans that drink from the sacred
Well of Urd in the realm of
Asgard, home of the
gods. According to the
Prose Edda,
the water of this well is so pure and holy that all things that touch
it turn white, including this original pair of swans and all others
descended from them. The poem
Volundarkvida, or the
Lay of Volund, part of the
Poetic Edda, also features swan maidens.
In the
Finnish epic
Kalevala, a swan lives in the Tuoni river located in
Tuonela, the underworld realm of the dead. According to the story, whoever killed a swan would perish as well.
Jean Sibelius composed the
Lemminkäinen Suite based on Kalevala, with the second piece entitled
Swan of Tuonela (Tuonelan joutsen). Today, five flying swans are the symbol of the
Nordic Countries and the
whooper swan (
Cygnus cygnus) is the national bird of Finland.
French satirist
François Rabelais wrote in
Gargantua and Pantagruel that a swan's neck was the best toilet paper he had encountered.
A swan is one of the attributes of St
Hugh of Lincoln based on the story of a swan who was devoted to him.
In
Latin American literature, the
Nicaraguan poet
Rubén Darío (1867–1916) consecrated the swan as a symbol of artistic inspiration by drawing attention to the constancy of swan imagery in
Western culture, beginning with the rape of Leda and ending with
Wagner's
Lohengrin. Darío's most famous poem in this regard is
Blasón – "Coat of Arms" (1896), and his use of the swan made it a symbol for the
Modernismo
poetic movement that dominated Spanish language poetry from the 1880s
until the First World War. Such was the dominance of Modernismo in
Spanish language poetry that the Mexican poet
Enrique González Martínez attempted to announce the end of Modernismo with a
sonnet provocatively entitled,
Tuércele el cuello al cisne – "Wring the Swan's Neck" (1910).
Swans are revered in
Hinduism,
and are compared to saintly persons whose chief characteristic is to be
in the world without getting attached to it, just as a swan's feather
does not get wet although it is in water. The
Sanskrit word for swan is
hamsa or
hansa, and the "Raja Hansa" or the Royal Swan is the vehicle of Goddess
Saraswati,
and symbolises the "Sattwa Guna" or purity par excellence. The swan if
offered a mixture of milk and water, is said to be able to drink the
milk alone. Therefore Goddess Saraswati the goddess of knowledge is seen
riding the swan because the swan thus symbolizes "Viveka" i.e. prudence
and discrimination between the good and the bad or between the eternal
and the transient. This is taken as a great quality, as shown by this
Sanskrit verse:
- Hamsah shwetah, bakah shwetah, kah bhedah hamsa bakayo?
- Neeraksheera viveketu, Hamsah hamsah, bakah bakah!
|
- The swan is white, the crane is white, so how to differentiate between them?
- With the milk-water test, the swan is proven swan, the crane is proven crane!
|
It is mentioned several times in the
Vedic literature, and persons who have attained great spiritual capabilities are sometimes called
Paramahamsa ("Supreme Swan") on account of their
spiritual grace and ability to travel between various spiritual worlds. In the Vedas, swans are said to reside in the summer on
Lake Manasarovar and migrate to Indian lakes for the winter. They're believed to possess some powers such as the ability to eat pearls.
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