Greater scaup refers to a seabird mentioned by Aristotle and others and is thought to refer to a duck, auklet or other seabird. The species name "marila" is from the Greek word for charcoal embers or coal dust. The greater scaup was first studied by Linnaeus in 1761. Male greater scaup from America are distinguishable from those in Europe and Asia by the stronger vermiculations, worm-like carvings or marks on the mantle and scapulars, and are considered a separate subspecies, "A. m. nearctica". Females of the two subspecies are indistinguishable. Based on size differences, a Pleistocene paleosubspecies, "Aythya marila asphaltica", has also
Greater scaup Isles, western Norway, the southern tip of Sweden, the coast from Brittany to Poland, including all of Denmark, the Alps, the eastern Adriatic Sea, the northern and western Black sea and the southwestern Caspian Sea. In North America, the greater scaup summers in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ungava Bay, Hudson Bay, Lake Winnipeg, northern Yukon, northern Manitoba, and northern Saskatchewan. It winters along the coasts of North America from northern British Columbia south to the Baja Peninsula and from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick south to Florida, as well as the shores of the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico.