In this paper, we show that spin waves, the elementary excitation of the Heisenberg magneticsystem, obey a kind of intermediate statistics with a finite maximum occupation numbern. We construct an operator realization for the intermediate statistics obeyed by magnons,the quantized spin waves, and then construct a corresponding intermediate-statisticsrealization for the angular momentum algebra in terms of the creation and annihilationoperators of the magnons. In other words, instead of the Holstein–Primakoff representation,a bosonic representation subject to a constraint on the occupation number, we present anintermediate-statistics representation with no constraints. In this realization, the maximumoccupation number is naturally embodied in the commutation relation of creation andannihilation operators, while the Holstein–Primakoff representation is a bosonic operatorrelation with an additional putting-in-by-hand restriction on the occupation number. Wededuce the intermediate-statistics distribution function for magnons from theintermediate-statistics commutation relation of the creation and annihilation operatorsdirectly, which is a modified Bose–Einstein distribution. On the basis of these results, wecalculate the dispersion relations for ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic spin waves. Therelations between the intermediate statistics that magnons obey and the othertwo important kinds of intermediate statistics, Haldane–Wu statistics and thefractional statistics of anyons, are discussed. We also compare the spectrum of theintermediate-statistics spin wave with the exact solution of the one-dimensionals = 1/2 Heisenberg model, which is obtained by the Bethe ansatz method. For ferromagnets, wetake the contributions from the interaction between magnons (the quartic contribution),the next-to-nearest-neighbor interaction, and the dipolar interaction into account forcomparison with the experiment.