Salvelinus Temporal range: Late Miocene - present [1] | |
---|---|
Arctic char, Salvelinus alpinus alpinus | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Actinopterygii |
Order: | Salmoniformes |
Family: | Salmonidae |
Subfamily: | Salmoninae |
Genus: | Salvelinus J. Richardson, 1836 |
Type species | |
Salvelinus umbla | |
Subgenera | |
|
Salvelinus is a genus of salmonid fish often called char [2] or charr; some species are called "trout". Salvelinus is a member of the subfamily Salmoninae within the family Salmonidae. The genus has a northern circumpolar distribution, and most of its members are typically cold-water fish that primarily inhabit fresh waters. Many species also migrate to the sea.
Most char may be identified by light-cream, pink, or red spots over a darker body. Scales tend to be small, with 115-200 along the lateral line. The pectoral, pelvic, anal, and the lower aspect of caudal fins are trimmed in snow white or cream leading edges.
Many members of this genus are popular sport fish, and a few, such as lake trout (S. namaycush) and arctic char (S. alpinus) are objects of commercial fisheries and/or aquaculture. Occasionally such fish escape and become invasive species.
Deepwater char are small species of char living below 80 m in the deep areas of certain lakes. They are highly sensitive to changes in the quality of the water and one species, Salvelinus neocomensis , was driven to extinction in the twentieth century. [3]
There are currently three subgenera in the genus Salvelinus: Baione, Cristovomer, and Salvelinus sensu stricto. Baione, the most basal clade in the genus, contains the brook trout (S. fontinalis), and the presumably extinct silver trout (S. agassizii). Cristovomer contains only the lake trout (S. namaycush). All other species are in the subgenus Salvelinus. If the long-finned char (Salvethymus svetovidovi) is considered a member of the genus Salvelinus, it would be classified in the subgenus Salvethymus, adding a fourth subgenus. [4] [5]
As with other salmonid genera, the delimitation of species in Salvelinus is controversial. FishBase in 2015 listed 54 species or subspecies in this genus, many of which have very narrow local distributions. Fourteen localised species are listed from the British Isles alone, although these traditionally, and still by the national conservation and fisheries authorities, are all considered to represent the widespread Arctic charr (S. alpinus). Twenty species are listed from the Asian part of Russia, including several localised taxa from in each of the Kamchatka, Chukotka and Taimyr peninsulas. One of these is the long-finned char, which phylogenetically is part of the Salvelinus group but has been so far classified into its own monotypic genus Salvethymus . [6]
The Arctic char (S. alpinus) is the most broadly distributed Salvelinus species. It has a circumpolar distribution, and it is considered the most northern of all freshwater fishes. In North America, five relatively well defined species are present, which, apart from the Arctic char, comprise the brook trout (S. fontinalis), bull trout (S. confluentus), Dolly Varden trout (S. malma) and lake trout (S. namaycush).
This listing presents the taxa recognised in FishBase grouped by geography:
Scotland and adjacent islands:
England and Wales:
Ireland:
Iceland and Atlantic islands:
Fennoscandia and Northwest Russia:
Atlantic drainages
Pacific & Arctic drainages
Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera Oncorhynchus, Salmo and Salvelinus, all of which are of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word trout is also used as part of the name of some non-salmonid fish such as Cynoscion nebulosus, the spotted seatrout or speckled trout.
The lake trout is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush,lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, it can also be variously known as siscowet, paperbelly and lean. The lake trout is prized both as a game fish and as a food fish. Those caught with dark coloration may be called mud hens.
The bull trout is a char of the family Salmonidae native to northwestern North America. Historically, S. confluentus has been known as the "Dolly Varden", but was reclassified as a separate species in 1980. Bull trout are listed as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (1998) and as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
The brook trout is a species of freshwater fish in the char genus Salvelinus of the salmon family Salmonidae. It is native to Eastern North America in the United States and Canada, but has been introduced elsewhere in North America, as well as to Iceland, Europe, and Asia. In parts of its range, it is also known as the eastern brook trout, speckled trout, brook charr, squaretail, brookie or mud trout, among others. A potamodromous population in Lake Superior, as well as an anadromous population in Maine, is known as coaster trout or, simply, as coasters. The brook trout is the state fish of nine U.S. states: Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia, and the Provincial Fish of Nova Scotia in Canada.
The Arctic char or Arctic charr is a cold-water fish in the family Salmonidae, native to alpine lakes, as well as Arctic and subarctic coastal waters in the Holarctic.
The silver trout is an extinct char species or subspecies that inhabited a few waters in New Hampshire in the United States prior to 1939, when a biological survey conducted on the Connecticut watershed by the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department found none.
The Dolly Varden trout is a species of salmonid fish native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. It belongs to the genus Salvelinus, or true chars, which includes 51 recognized species, the most prominent being the brook, lake and bull trout, as well as Arctic char. Although many populations are semi-anadromous, fluvial and lacustrine populations occur throughout its range. It is considered by taxonomists as part of the Salvelinus alpinus or Arctic char complex, as many populations of bull trout, Dolly Varden trout and Arctic char overlap.
Salvelinus curilus is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. It inhabits the waters of Russian Far East in the Kurile Islands, Sakhalin, Primorye and also Korea and Japan. It has mostly been considered a subspecies of the Dolly Varden trout Salvelinus malma, with the name Salvelinus malma krascheninnikova, and referred to as the southern Dolly Varden or Asian southern form Dolly Varden trout.
The splake or slake is a hybrid of two fish species resulting from the crossing of a male brook trout and a female lake trout. The name itself is a portmanteau of speckled trout and lake trout, and may have been used to describe such hybrids as early as the 1880s. Hybrids of the male lake trout with the female brook trout have also been produced, but are not as successful.
The angayukaksurak char is a type of salmonid fish found in Alaska in a few select Brooks Range headwaters.
Salvethymus svetovidovi, also called the long-finned charr, is a species of salmonid fish. It is endemic to Elgygytgyn Lake in Chukotka, Far East of Russia, together with another species, the small-mouth char Salvelinus elgyticus. A third char species in the same lake is Salvelinusboganidae, the Boganid char.
Salvelinus inframundus, also known as Orkney charr is a cold-water fish in the family Salmonidae which is endemic to Scotland.
Salvelinus killinensis, also known as Haddy charr is a variety of charr found in certain lakes in Scotland.
Salvelinus elgyticus is a species of fish in the salmon family, Salmonidae. It is a member of genus Salvelinus, the chars. It is known commonly as the small-mouth char. It is endemic to Lake El'gygytgyn in eastern Siberia in Russia.
Salvelinus umbla, also known as lake char, is a species of char found in certain lakes of the region of the Alps in Europe.
A kype is a hook-like secondary sex characteristic which develops at the distal tip of the lower jaw in some male salmonids prior to the spawning season. The structure usually develops in the weeks prior to, and during, migration to the spawning grounds. In addition to the development of the kype, a large depression forms in the two halves of the premaxilla in the upper jaw, allowing the kype to fit into the premaxilla when the mouth is closed.
Salvelinus grayi, also called Gray's char[r], Lough Melvin char[r] or freshwater herring, is a species of lacustrine char in the family Salmonidae.
The Sommen charr is a population or subspecies of Arctic charr found in Lake Sommen. It is one of twenty-two species of fish found in the lake.