Salvelinus is a genus of Salmonidae fish often called char
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 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.
Etymology
The origin of the name "char" or "charr" is unknown, but was perhaps from
Celtic language, such as the
Irish language word ceara meaning "fiery red" (found in some Celtic
), likely for the bright red belly of the
Arctic char; or perhaps
loanword from Middle Low German
schar meaning "
flounder,
common dab"; or from
Proto-Germanic *skardaz or
*skeraną meaning "to cut or shear", possibly referring to its
sherd-like shape.
[Wright, L. (1996). Sources of London English: Medieval Thames Vocabulary. United Kingdom: Clarendon Press, p. 107]
Taxonomy
There are currently three
Subgenus 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.
Species diversity
As with other
salmonidae 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
Taymyr Peninsula 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.
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:
Circumpolar
Europe
- Central Europe
- British Isles
Scotland and adjacent islands:
-
Salvelinus gracillimus Regan, 1909
-
Salvelinus inframundus Regan, 1909
-
Salvelinus killinensis (Günther, 1866)
-
Salvelinus mallochi Regan, 1909
-
Salvelinus maxillaris Regan, 1909
-
Salvelinus struanensis (Maitland, 1881)
-
Salvelinus youngeri (Friend, 1965) – golden char
England and Wales:
-
Salvelinus lonsdalii Regan, 1909
-
Salvelinus perisii (Günther, 1865)
-
Salvelinus willughbii (Günther, 1862)
Ireland:
-
Salvelinus colii (Günther, 1863) – Cole's char
-
Salvelinus fimbriatus Regan, 1908 – Coomsaharn char
-
Salvelinus grayi (Günther, 1862) – Gray's char
-
Salvelinus obtusus Regan, 1908 – blunt-snouted Irish char
- Northern Europe
Iceland and Atlantic islands:
-
Salvelinus faroensis Joensen & Tåning, 1970
-
Salvelinus murta (Sæmundsson, 1909)
-
Salvelinus thingvallensis (Sæmundsson, 1909)
-
Salvelinus salvelinoinsularis (Lönnberg, 1900) – Bear Island char
Fennoscandia and Northwest Russia:
-
Salvelinus lepechini (J. F. Gmelin, 1789)
Asia
- Arctic drainages
-
Salvelinus andriashevi Lev Berg, 1948 – Chukot char
-
Salvelinus boganidae L. S. Berg, 1926 – Boganida char
-
Salvelinus czerskii Dryagin, 1932 – Cherskii's char
-
Salvelinus drjagini Logashev, 1940 – Dryagin's char
-
Salvelinus elgyticus Viktorovsky & Glubokovsky, 1981 – small-mouth char
-
Salvelinus alpinus erythrinus (Georgi, 1775) – davatchan
-
Salvelinus jacuticus Borisov, 1935 – Yakutian char
-
Salvelinus taimyricus Mikhin, 1949
-
Salvelinus taranetzi Kaganowsky, 1955 – Taranets char
-
Salvelinus tolmachoffi L. S. Berg, 1926 – Lake Yessey char
-
Salvethymus svetovidovi Chereshnev & Skopets, 1990 – long-finned char: phylogenetically part of the Salvelinus clade
[]
]
- Pacific drainages
-
Salvelinus albus Glubokovsky, 1977 – white char
-
Salvelinus curilus (Pallas, 1814) (= S. malma krascheninnikova Taranetz, 1933 – southern Dolly Varden
-
Salvelinus gritzenkoi Vasil'eva & Stygar, 2000
-
Salvelinus krogiusae Glubokovksy, Frolov, Efremov, Ribnikova & Katugin, 1993
-
Salvelinus kronocius Viktorovsky, 1978
-
Salvelinus kuznetzovi Taranetz, 1933
-
Salvelinus leucomaenis (Pallas, 1814) – whitespotted char
-
S. l. leucomaenis (Pallas, 1814)
-
S. l. imbrius D. S. Jordan & E. A. McGregor, 1925
-
S. l. pluvius (Hilgendorf, 1876)
-
S. l. japonicus (= S. japonicus) Ōshima, 1961 – kirikuchi char
-
Salvelinus neiva Taranetz, 1933 – Neiva
-
Salvelinus schmidti Viktorovsky, 1978
-
Salvelinus vasiljevae Safronov & Zvezdov, 2005 – Sakhalinian char
North America
,
Salvelinus namaycush]]
Atlantic drainages
Pacific & Arctic drainages
Hybrids
External links
