The Yangtze or Yangzi, which is 6,300 km (3,915 mi) long, is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. Its source is in the northern part of the Tibetan Plateau and it flows 6,300 km (3,900 mi) in a generally eastern direction to the East China Sea. It is the sixth-largest river by discharge volume in the world. Its drainage basin comprises one-fifth of the land area of China, and is home to nearly one-third of the country's population.
The Yellow River or Huang He is the second longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth longest river system in the world at the estimated length of 5,464 km (3,395 mi). Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai province of Western China, it flows through nine provinces, and it empties into the Bohai Sea near the city of Dongying in Shandong province. The Yellow River basin has an east–west extent of about 1,900 kilometers (1,180 mi) and a north–south extent of about 1,100 km (680 mi). Its total drainage area is about 752,546 square kilometers (290,560 sq mi).
The Mekong is a trans-boundary river in Southeast Asia. It is the world's twelfth longest river and the seventh longest in Asia. Its estimated length is 4,350 km (2,703 mi), and it drains an area of 795,000 km2 (307,000 sq mi), discharging 475 km3 (114 cu mi) of water annually. From the Tibetan Plateau the river runs through China's Yunnan Province, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. In 1995, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam established the Mekong River Commission (MRC) to manage and coordinate use of the Mekong's resources. In 1996 China and Myanmar became "dialogue partners" of the MRC and the six countries now work together in a cooperative framework.
Sturgeon is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. Their evolution dates back to the Triassic some 245 to 208 million years ago. The family is grouped into four genera: Acipenser, Huso, Scaphirhynchus and Pseudoscaphirhynchus. Four species may now be extinct. Two closely related species, Polyodon spathula and Psephurus gladius are of the same order, Acipenseriformes, but are in the family Polyodontidae and are not considered to be "true" sturgeons. Both sturgeons and paddlefish have been referred to as "primitive fishes" because their morphological characteristics have remained relatively unchanged since the earliest fossil record. Sturgeons are native to subtropical, temperate and sub-Arctic rivers, lakes and coastlines of Eurasia and North America.
Chinese paddlefish, also known as Chinese swordfish, are among the largest freshwater fish, although the species is anadromous. It is one of two extant species in the paddlefish family (Polyodontidae), the other being the American paddlefish. The Chinese paddlefish is critically endangered and has not been seen for years, leading to fears that it may already be extinct.
The genus Tamarix is composed of about 50–60 species of flowering plants in the family Tamaricaceae, native to drier areas of Eurasia and Africa. The generic name originated in Latin and may refer to the Tamaris River in Hispania Tarraconensis (Spain).
Mamenchisaurus is a sauropod dinosaur genus including several species, known for their remarkably long necks which made up half the total body length. It is known from numerous species which ranged in time from 160 to 145 million years ago, from the Oxfordian to Tithonian ages of the late Jurassic Period of China, and the largest species may have reached 35 m (115 ft) in length and possibly weighed 50 to 75 tons.
The black carp or black Chinese roach is a species of cyprinid fish and the sole species of the genus Mylopharyngodon. It is native to lakes and rivers in East Asia, ranging from the Amur Basin, through China, to Vietnam. It is widely cultivated for food and Chinese medicine. The black carp can reach up to 1.8 m (5.9 ft) in length and 35 kg (77 lb) in weight. It generally feeds on snails and mussels. The average length is 60–120 cm (23.5–47 in). Black carp, together with bighead, silver, and grass carps, make up the culturally important "four famous domestic fishes" used in polyculture in China for over a thousand years, and known as "Asian carp" in the United States. Black carp are not as widely distributed worldwide as the other three.
Huanghetitan, is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the early Cretaceous Period. It was a basal titanosauriform which lived in what is now Gansu, China.
Sinocyclocheilus is a genus of freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae endemic to China, where only found in Guangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan. Almost all of its species live in or around caves and most of these have adaptions typical of cavefish such as a lack of scales, lack of pigmentation and reduced eyes. Several species have an unusual hunchbacked appearance and some of the cave-dwellers have a "horn" on the back, the function of which is unclear. In contrast, the Sinocyclocheilus species that live aboveground, as well as a few found underground, show no clear cavefish adaptions. They are relatively small fish reaching up to 23 cm (9.1 in) in length. The individual species have small ranges and populations, leading to the status of most of the evaluated species as threatened. Many species populations in the genus have yet to be evaluated by the IUCN.
Cobitis is a genus of small freshwater fish in the family Cobitidae from temperate and subtropical Eurasia. It contains the "typical spiny loaches", including the well-known spined loach of Europe. Similar spiny loaches, occurring generally south of the range of Cobitis, are nowadays separated in Sabanejewia.
Schistura is a genus of fish in the stone loach family Nemacheilidae native to the streams and rivers of the southern and eastern Asia. Some of these species are troglobitic.
Triplophysa is a genus of fish in the family Nemacheilidae found mainly in and around the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China. Currently, the genus is a mixed assemblage of species. Some lineages have been identified and treated as subgenera, but as Wikipedia follows Fishbase for fish species these have been treated as subgenera in Wikipedia, although Kottelat and the Catalog of Fishes treat them as genera. FishBase, however, includes these in Triplophysa without specifying subgenera and treats the names given by Kottelat as synonyms.
Yunnanilus is a genus of small stone loaches that are endemic to southeastern China, especially Guangxi and Yunnan. They are found in rivers, streams and lakes; some species are restricted to caves.
Dabry's sturgeon is a species of fish in the sturgeon family, Acipenseridae. Other common names include Yangtze sturgeon, Chiangjiang sturgeon, and river sturgeon. It is endemic to the Yangtze River Basin in China. It was a food fish of commercial importance. Its populations declined drastically, and in the early 1980s, it was designated an endangered species and commercial harvest was banned. It has been listed as a critically endangered species by the IUCN since 1996.
The baiji is a type of freshwater dolphin thought to be the first dolphin species driven to extinction due to the impact of humans. Nicknamed "Goddess of the Yangtze". Since Baiji means 'white' in Chinese, it means 'white dolphin. In China, the dolphin is also called Chinese river dolphin, Yangtze River dolphin, whitefin dolphin and Yangtze dolphin. It was regarded as the goddess of protection by local fishermen and boatmen in China. It is not to be confused with the Chinese white dolphin or the finless porpoise.
China, with one-fifth of the world's population, accounts for two-thirds of the world's reported aquaculture production.
The Ou River or Oujiang is the second-largest river in the Zhejiang province of eastern China. The river flows 388 kilometers (241 mi) before finally reaching the city of Wenzhou and emptying into the East China Sea, into which it discharges 20.2 billion cubic meters of water annually. Shen Jiang, Jiang Yongjia (永嘉江), and Wenjiang are all former names for this river.
The Gastromyzontidae are a family of loaches native to China and Southeast Asia, where typically found in streams and rivers with a fast current. The family includes about 137 species in eighteen genera. This family was resurrected by M. Kottelat in his review and revision of the loaches in 2012.
The narrow-ridged finless porpoise is a newly accepted species, by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), of porpoise endemic to the western Yangtze river in China and the East China Sea, Yellow Sea, and around Japan. There are two subspecies: the Yangtze finless porpoise and the East Asian finless porpoise. After the functional extinction of the Yangtze river dolphin and the rapid decreasing of population, the Chinese government has given this species the utmost conservation status of National First Grade Key Protected Wild Animal to ensure its survival. Global conservation agencies and charities, such as the World Wildlife Fund and IUCN, have been collaborating with the Chinese government to ensure the survival of the species.
