The broad whitefish (''Coregonus nasus'') is a freshwater whitefish

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

. Dark silvery in colour, and like a

herring Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae. Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, i ...

in its shape, its distinctive features include a convex head, short gill rakers, and a mild overbite. It is found in the Arctic-draining

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

s, and

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

s of far eastern

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

and

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. Its prey includes larval insects, snails, and shellfish. It is eaten by humans and

brown bear The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear species found across Eurasia and North America. In North America, the populations of brown bears are called grizzly bears, while the subspecies that inhabits the Kodiak Islands of Alaska is kno ...

Description

The broad whitefish is a herring-shaped fish with a more compressed body and convex head than other whitefishes. It is iridescent, with a dark olive-brown back, silvery grey sides, and a whitish bottom.Froese and Pauly, 2010 Features that distinguish it from other species include a mild overbite and 18–25 short gill rakers. The fins of adults are grey, while those of young fish are grey.Alaska Natural Heritage Program, 2005 It reaches a maximum length of , and a maximum weight of .

Distribution and habitat

The broad whitefish is found in Arctic-draining basins in northern

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago a ...

and

from the

Pechora River ; Komi: Печӧра; Nenets: Санэроˮ яха , name_etymology = The Russian name of the river is a combination of two words in an old local Nenets dialect, "pe" & "chora". Literally it means "forest dweller". , image ...

to the Perry River. Most commonly inhabiting

s, it is also found in

s and

estuaries An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environment ...

with a salinity of less than 15 percent. Fish from freshwater populations sometimes migrate to or through ocean waters, especially in the winter. It is nerito-pelagic, meaning that it is found in inshore open water. Throughout its range it is widespread and abundant, and there are no known threats to its survival,Page and Burr, 1991, p. 39 though it could potentially be threatened by

overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in th ...

habitat destruction Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

caused by oil exploration, and alteration of rivers. It has a number of genetically distinct forms in the various basins it occurs in. It has been stocked successfully in

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

and unsuccessfully in

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. An introduction has been made in

Mining, Austria Mining (, as in ''mean-ing'', not as in ''mining'') is a municipality in the district of Braunau am Inn in the Austrian state of Upper Austria Upper Austria (german: Oberösterreich ; bar, Obaöstareich) is one of the nine states or of Austr ...

, where a rod and reel record fish was caught in 2002.

Ecology

Recorded items in the broad whitefish's diet are chironomid midges, mosquito larvae,

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gastro ...

bivalve Bivalvia (), in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of marine and freshwater molluscs that have laterally compressed bodies enclosed by a shell consisting of two hinged parts. As a group, bival ...

s, and

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

s. It migrates upstream to spawn, except in some estuaries. These migrations are difficult for it, and many individuals become heavily scarred from infestations, lampreys, and fishing nets. It prefers streams with gravel bottoms, especially those with finer gravel, for spawning. After hatching, larval fish move downstream. In Russia, spawning occurs between July and November in various populations.

As food

This fish is commonly consumed by humans, especially on a subsistence basis, and its good-tasting flesh is sold fresh, smoked, or dried. Also known as ''Chir'', the broad whitefish is one of the species used in the Arctic

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

n dish stroganina. It is also eaten by

s, especially when their preferred

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

is not available.Barker and Derocher, 2009

References

Literature cited

* Alaska Natural Heritage Program (2005)
"''Coregonus nasus.''"
''Fishes Tracking List and Status Reports''. Retrieved 10 February 2010. * Barker, Oliver E., and Derocher, Andrew E. (2009)
"Brown Bear (''Ursus arctos'') Predation of Broad Whitefish (''Coregonus nasus'') in the Mackenzie Delta Region, Northwest Territories."
''Arctic'' 62(3):312–316. Retrieved 15 February 2010. * * * Harris, Les N. (2008)
"Population genetic structure of North American broad whitefish, Coregonus nasus (Pallas), with emphasis on the Mackenzie River system".
Dissertation for the Degree of Master of Science. Retrieved 12 February 2010 * Machacek, Heinz
"Fishing World Records"
''Fishing World Records.'' Retrieved 18 February 2010. * Page, Lawrence M., and Burr, Brooks M. (1991). ''A Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes'' Boston: Houghton Mifflin. * Reist, J. D.; R. A. Bodaly, R. J. P. Fudge, K. J. Cash, and T. V. Stevens (1987). "External scarring of whitefish, Coregonus nasus and C. clupeaformis complex, from the western Northwest Territories, Canada". ''Canadian Journal of Zoology'' 65(5): 1230–1239. .

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q510354 Freshwater fish of the Arctic Coregonus Fish described in 1776