The Baja California rainbow trout or San Pedro Martir trout or Nelson's trout (''
Oncorhynchus mykiss nelsoni'') is a localized subspecies of the
rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss''), a
freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are those that spend some or all of their lives in fresh water, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 1.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, especially the difference in levels of ...
in the family
Salmonidae
Salmonidae is a family of ray-finned fish that constitutes the only currently extant family in the order Salmoniformes . It includes salmon (both Atlantic and Pacific species), trout (both ocean-going and landlocked), chars, freshwater whitefis ...
.
Baja California rainbow trout is one of many species of
Mexican native trout.
Distribution
It is
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...
to headwater tributaries of the
Rio Santo Domingo in the
Sierra de San Pedro Mártir
Sierra de San Pedro Mártir ( Kiliwa: ʔxaal haq, en, mountains of Saint Peter the Martyr) is a mountain range located within southern Ensenada Municipality and southern Baja California state, of northwestern Mexico.
It is a major mountain ran ...
mountain range of the
Peninsular Ranges System, located in
Baja California
Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...
state on the northern
Baja California Peninsula.
Taxonomy
19th century
The first records of trout in northwestern Mexico were published by
paleontologist
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
E. D. Cope in 1886 where he describes two specimens from
Chihuahua as having the appearance of ''Salmo purpuratus'' a name sometimes incorrectly used for
cutthroat trout (''Oncorhynchus clarki'').
In 1898 and 1905,
naturalist E. W. Nelson with the
U.S. Biological Survey led explorations into the Mexican mainland (1898) and
Baja California Peninsula (1905) to document flora and fauna.
20th century
In 1908, preserved specimens of trout that Nelson brought back from the Rio Santo Domingo (Santo Domingo creek) in the
Sierra de San Pedro Mártir
Sierra de San Pedro Mártir ( Kiliwa: ʔxaal haq, en, mountains of Saint Peter the Martyr) is a mountain range located within southern Ensenada Municipality and southern Baja California state, of northwestern Mexico.
It is a major mountain ran ...
mountains of
Baja California
Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...
were described by
ichthyologist B.W. Evermann as a new species ''Salmo nelsoni'', the Baja rainbow trout.
[
In 1989, morphological and genetic studies indicated trout of the ]Pacific basin
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
were genetically closer to Pacific salmon (''Oncorhynchus'' species) than to the ''Salmo
''Salmo'' is a genus of ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae. The single ''Salmo'' species naturally found in the Atlantic North America is the Atlantic salmon, whereas the salmon and trout of the Pacific basin belong to another genus, '' ...
''s– brown trout (''S. trutta'') or Atlantic salmon (''S. salar'') of the Atlantic basin
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
. Thus, in 1989, taxonomic authorities moved the rainbow, cutthroat and other Pacific basin trout, including the Mexican native trout into the genus ''Oncorhynchus''. Thus ''Salmo mykiss nelsoni'' became ''O. m. nelsoni''.
See also
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References
Oncorhynchus
Trout, Baja California
Endemic fauna of the Baja California Peninsula
Natural history of the Peninsular Ranges
Subspecies
{{Salmoniformes-stub