The upland goose or Magellan goose (Chloephaga picta) is a sheldgoose of the shelduck-sheldgoose subfamily of the Anatidae, the biological family that includes the ducks and most duck-like waterfowl such as the geese and swans. Sheldgeese resemble true geese and display similar habits, yet they are more closely related to shelducks and ducks. The two recognized subspecies of upland goose are the continental picta subspecies and the insular (island) leucoptera subspecies. This species nests and breeds close to water (rivers, ponds, oceans) either on the ground or near it among vegetation, usually in grasslands or coastal meadows in the Falkland Islands or in southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego at the beginning of the austral summer. Population estimates suggest the insular subpopulations are stable, but continental populations show a recent decline in abundance. Upland geese are herbivores, specializing in plant leaves, stems and seeds. Taxonomy The upland goose was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the other ducks, geese and swans in the genus Anas and coined the binomial name Anas picta. Gmelin based his description on the "Painted goose" that had been included by the English ornithologist John Latham in his A General Synopsis of Birds. The species had been observed in 1775 on the Isla de los Estados (Staten Island) during Captain James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific Ocean. The naturalist Joseph Banks had provided Latham with a water-colour drawing of the goose by Georg Forster who had accompanied James Cook. It is the holotype for the species and is held by the Natural History Museum in London. The upland goose is now placed with four other species in the genus Chloephaga that was introduced in 1838 by the English naturalist Thomas Campbell Eyton. The genus name comes from the Ancient Greek khloē meaning "grass" and -phagos meaning "-eating". The specific epithet picta is from Latin pictus meaning "painted. There are strong morphological and genetic similarities between the bird fauna of the Falkland Islands and southern South America, and most native bird species are usually present in both insular and continental populations. The biogeography of the region suggests that these similarities exist because in the geological past, birds from the continent might have reached the Falkland Islands either across a former land connection, during periods of lowered