Caspian tyulka, ''Clupeonella caspia'', is a species of

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...

in the family

Clupeidae Clupeidae is a family of ray-finned fishes, comprising, for instance, the herrings, shads, sardines, hilsa, and menhadens. The clupeoids include many of the most important food fishes in the world, and are also commonly caught for productio ...

. It is found in the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...

, also in the lower reaches of the rivers

Volga The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchm ...

Ural Ural may refer to: *Ural (region), in Russia and Kazakhstan *Ural Mountains, in Russia and Kazakhstan *Ural (river), in Russia and Kazakhstan * Ual (tool), a mortar tool used by the Bodo people of India *Ural Federal District, in Russia *Ural econ ...

, and possibly Terek. This is a brackishwater

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or w ...

neritic The neritic zone (or sublittoral zone) is the relatively shallow part of the ocean above the drop-off of the continental shelf, approximately in depth. From the point of view of marine biology it forms a relatively stable and well-illuminate ...

fish, up to 12 cm maximum length. Previously the Caspian tyulka was considered to be a part of the more widespread ''

Clupeonella cultriventris The Black Sea sprat, ''Clupeonella cultriventris'', is a small fish of the herring family, Clupeidae. It is found in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov and rivers of its basins: Danube, Dnister, Dnipro (Ukraine), Southern Bug, Don, Kuban. It has ...

'' (subspecies ''C. cultriventris caspia''), but that species is now thought to inhabit the Pontic basin only.

References

Sources

* Clupeonella Fish of Asia Fish of Russia Fish of the Caspian Sea Fish described in 1941 {{Clupeiformes-stub