The freshwater tyulka (''Clupeonella tscharchalensis'') 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 herring 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 ...

watersheds, including 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 ...

and

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 ...

. It was introduced to the

Don River The Don ( rus, Дон, p=don) is the fifth-longest river in Europe. Flowing from Central Russia to the Sea of Azov in Southern Russia, it is one of Russia's largest rivers and played an important role for traders from the Byzantine Empire. Its ...

basin ( Sea of Azov basin) and is also invasive upstream in the Volga drainage (

Kama River The Kama (russian: Ка́ма, ; tt-Cyrl, Чулман, ''Çulman''; udm, Кам) is a long«Река � ...

). It is a small freshwater

pelagic fish Pelagic fish live in the pelagic zone of ocean or lake waters—being neither close to the bottom nor near the shore—in contrast with demersal fish that do live on or near the bottom, and reef fish that are associated with coral re ...

, up to 10 cm maximal length, inhabiting large lakes and reservoirs, and breeding in open water. Earlier it was considered to be a part of the species ''

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 ...

'' (a variety or subspecies).Freyhof, J. & Kottelat, M. (2008
''Clupeonella tscharchalensis''

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

of Threatened Species v. 2014.3

Sources

Clupeonella Fish of Asia Fish of Russia Fish described in 1896 {{Clupeiformes-stub