The genus
Chloephaga was introduced in 1838 by the English naturalist
Thomas Campbell Eyton in his
A Monograph on the Anatidae, or Duck Tribe. He designated the
type species as
Chloephaga magellanica. This is
Anas magellanica Gmelin, JF 1789, which is a
synonym of
Anas leucoptera Gmelin, JF 1789.
Anas leucoptera is now considered as a
subspecies of the
upland goose Chloephaga picta leucoptera. The genus name comes from the combination of the
Ancient Greek khloē meaning "grass" with
-phagos meaning "-eating". A
molecular phylogenetic study by Mariana Bulgarella and collaborators published in 2014 found that the
Orinoco goose in the
monotypic genus
Neochen, was embedded in the genus
Chloephaga: |1= |2= }} }} }} Based on this result, some authorities place the Orinoco goose together with the
Andean goose in the resurrected genus
Oressochen. A fossilized partial
coracoid (CTES-PZ 7797) of an indeterminate
Chloephaga species sharing some characters with the extant
upland goose is known from the
upper Pleistocene Toropí Formation (also called the Yupoí Formation) in
Corrientes Province, Argentina, 700 kilometers further north than the northernmost present-day record of the genus. ==Species==