Branta

The genus contains six living species.[5]

Image	Scientific name	Common name	Distribution
	Branta bernicla	Brant (U.S.) or brent goose (U.K.)	High Arctic tundra. Circumpolar; several distinct breeding populations, which winter in particular areas (some of which overlap) along the northern temperate zone of the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines. Some resident populations can be found in the United States and Western Europe.
	Branta ruficollis	Red-breasted goose	Arctic Siberia, mainly on the Taymyr Peninsula, with smaller populations in the Gydan and Yamal Peninsulas, northwestern shores of the Black Sea in Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine
	Branta sandvicensis	Nene, nēnē, or Hawaiian goose	Hawaiian Islands
	Branta canadensis	Canada goose	Temperate regions of North America, introduced populations in Western Europe, Scandinavia, Japan, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina and the Falkland Islands
	Branta leucopsis	Barnacle goose	Breeding on Arctic islands of the northeastern Atlantic, wintering in North-Western Europe to France.
	Branta hutchinsii – formerly included in B. canadensis	Cackling goose	North America, northern Canada and Alaska

Two species have been described from subfossil remains found in the Hawaiian Islands, where they became extinct in prehistoric times:

• †Nēnē-nui or wood-walking goose, Branta hylobadistes (prehistoric)

Similar but hitherto undescribed remains are known from on Kauaʻi and Oʻahu.

• †Giant Hawaii goose, Branta rhuax (prehistoric), formerly Geochen rhuax

The relationships of the enigmatic Geochen rhuax, formerly known only from parts of a single bird's skeleton damaged due to apparently dying in a lava flow, were long unresolved. After reexamination of the subfossil material and comparisons with other subfossil bones from the island of Hawaiʻi assigned to the genus Branta, it was redescribed as Branta rhuax in 2013.[6] While a presumed relation between B. rhuax and the shelducks, proposed by Lester Short in 1970,[7] has thus been refuted, bones of a shelduck-like bird have been found more recently on Kaua‘i. Whether this latter anatid was indeed a shelduck is presently undetermined.

Similarly, two bones found on Oʻahu indicate the erstwhile presence of a gigantic waterfowl on this island. Its relationships relative to this genus and the moa-nalos, enormous goose-like dabbling ducks, are completely undeterminable at present.

Several fossil species of Branta have been described. Since the true geese are hardly distinguishable by anatomical features, the allocation of these to this genus is somewhat uncertain. A number of supposed prehistoric grey geese have been described from North America, partially from the same sites as species assigned to Branta. Whether these are correctly assigned – meaning that the genus Anser was once much more widespread than today and that it coexisted with Branta in freshwater habitat which it today does only most rarely – is not clear. Especially in the case of B. dickeyi and B. howardae, doubts have been expressed about its correct generic assignment.

• Branta woolfendeni (Big Sandy Late Miocene of Wickieup, USA)
• Branta thessaliensis (Late Miocene of Perivolaki, Greece)
• Branta dickeyi (Late Pliocene – Late Pleistocene of W USA)[7][8][9][10]
• Branta esmeralda (Esmeralda Early Pliocene)[9][10][11]
• Branta howardae (Ricardo Early Pliocene)[10][11][12][13]
• Branta propinqua (Middle Pleistocene of Fossil Lake, USA)[7][10]
• Branta hypsibata (Pleistocene of Fossil Lake, USA)[7][9][10]

The former "Branta" minuscula is now placed with the prehistoric American shelducks, Anabernicula.[10] On the other hand, a goose fossil from the Early-Middle Pleistocene of El Salvador is highly similar to Anser and given its age and biogeography it is likely to belong to that genus or Branta.[14]