Anser (poet)

Anser was a poet of ancient Rome who lived in the 1st century BCE. He was a friend of the triumvir Mark Antony, and one of the detractors of Virgil. He wrote in an indelicate or unserious style.Ovid calls him procax, an adjective meaning "shameless" or "impudent".

Some scholars have suggested that Anser is the same man who is elsewhere referred to as Lycidas, and that "Anser" is a pseudonym for this poet writing unserious work. ("Anser" is Latin for "goose".) Other scholars - even if they do not identify "Anser" with Lycidas - question whether there was ever a person who was actually named "Anser", or whether it was just a generic dismissal of a bad poet. The 4th century grammarian Servius asserts that "Anser" was indeed a specific person with that name, but he is the only source who makes this claim unambiguously, and was writing several centuries after Anser was said to have lived.

Notes

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: William Smith (1870). "Anser". In Smith, William. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology 1. p. 181. 

Anser (bird)

The waterfowl genus Anser includes all grey geese (and sometimes the white geese). It belongs to the true geese and swan subfamily (Anserinae). The genus has a Holarctic distribution, with at least one species breeding in any open, wet habitats in the subarctic and cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere in summer. Some also breed further south, reaching into warm temperate regions. They mostly migrate south in winter, typically to regions in the temperate zone between the January 0 °C (32 °F) to 5 °C (41 °F) isotherms.

The genus contains ten living species, which span nearly the whole range of true goose shapes and sizes. The largest is the greylag goose at 2.5–4.1 kg (5.5–9.0 lb) weight, and the smallest is the Ross's goose at 1.2–1.6 kg (2.6–3.5 lb). All have legs and feet that are pink, or orange, and bills that are pink, orange, or black. All have white under- and upper-tail coverts, and several have some extent of white on their heads. The neck, body and wings are grey or white, with black or blackish primary—and also often secondary—remiges (pinions). The closely related "black" geese in the genus Branta differ in having black legs, and generally darker body plumage.