The Dolly Varden trout (''Salvelinus malma'') is a species of salmonid fish native to cold-water tributaries of the

Pacific Ocean 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 contin ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

and North America. It belongs to the genus ''

Salvelinus ''Salvelinus'' is a genus of salmonid fish often called char or charr; some species are called "trout". ''Salvelinus'' is a member of the subfamily Salmoninae within the family Salmonidae. The genus has a northern circumpolar distribution, and ...

'', or true chars, which includes 51 recognized species, the most prominent being the brook,

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 ...

and

bull trout The bull trout (''Salvelinus confluentus'') is a char of the family Salmonidae native to northwestern North America. Historically, ''S. confluentus'' has been known as the " Dolly Varden" (''S. malma''), but was reclassified as a separate speci ...

, as well as

Arctic char The Arctic char or Arctic charr (''Salvelinus alpinus'') is a cold-water fish in the family Salmonidae, native to alpine lakes and arctic and subarctic coastal waters. Its distribution is Circumpolar North. It spawns in freshwater and populat ...

. Although many populations are semi- anadromous, fluvial and

lacustrine 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 larger ...

populations occur throughout its range. It is considered by taxonomists as part of the ''Salvelinus alpinus'' or Arctic char complex, as many populations of bull trout, Dolly Varden trout and Arctic char overlap.

Taxonomy

The scientific name of the Dolly Varden is ''Salvelinus malma''. The species was originally named by German naturalist and

taxonomist In biology, taxonomy () is the scientific study of naming, defining ( circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa (singular: taxon) and these groups are give ...

Johann Julius Walbaum Johann Julius Walbaum (30 June 1724 – 21 August 1799) was a German physician, natural history, naturalist and fauna taxonomist. Works As an ichthyologist, he was the first to describe many previously unknown fish species from remote parts of ...

in 1792 based on type specimens from the

Kamchatka Peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and w ...

in Siberia. The name ''malma'' was based on

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

, the local colloquial name for the fish. The Dolly Varden trout is considered part of the ''S. alpinus'' or Arctic char complex. For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Dolly Varden trout (''S. malma'') and the

(''S. confluentus'') were considered the same species. Additionally, the

(''S. alpinus'') along with the bull trout have ranges that overlap and are remarkably similar in appearance, thus complicating identification. In 1978, inland forms of the Dolly Varden trout were reclassified as ''Salvelinus confluentus'', retaining the common name bull trout. It appears that the first recorded use of the Dolly Varden name for fish referred to ''S. confluentus'', now commonly known as the bull trout. This was likely due to overlapping ranges and similar appearances among members of the two species.

Subspecies

Dolly Varden Trout (Salvelinus malma) (15257826670)

In North America, two subspecies of Dolly Varden are distinguished, the Northern Dolly Varden (''S. m. malma'') of the Arctic drainages and the Southern Dolly Varden (''S. m. lordi'') of the Pacific drainages. These can be distinguished as separate mitochondrial lineages also. The status of the Beringian drainage populations remains unclear. Northern populations on the Russian side of the Pacific down to

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and west ...

are considered ''S. m. malma'', and the southerly populations make another lineage and subspecies, the Asian Dolly Varden (or southern Dolly Varden) ''S. m. krascheninnikova'' (= '' S. curilus''). The landlocked Miyabe Char (''S. m. miyabei'' Oshima, 1938) from Lake Shikaribetsu on

Hokkaido is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The lar ...

in Japan is also included in the Dolly Varden species.''Salvelinus malma miyabei''
FishBase (2014) * ''S. m. malma'' (Walbaum, 1792) (Northern Dolly Varden) * ''S. m. lordi'' (Günther, 1866) (Southern Dolly Varden) * ''S. m. krascheninnikova'' (Taranez, 1933) = '' Salvelinus curilus'' (Southern Dolly Varden or Asian Dolly Varden) * ''S. m. miyabei'' (Oshima, 1938) (Miyabe Char)

Origin of common name "Dolly Varden"

The first recorded use of the name "Dolly Varden" was applied to members of ''S. confluentus'' caught in the

McCloud River The McCloud River is a longU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 10, 2011 river that flows east of and parallel to the upper Sacramento River, in Siskiyou County and S ...

in northern California in the early 1870s. In his book ''Inland Fishes of California'', Peter B. Moyle recounts a letter sent to him on March 24, 1974, from Valerie Masson Gomez: In 1874, Livingston Stone, a naturalist working for the U.S. government, wrote of this fish: Although the name "Dolly Varden" was originally given to the bull trout of the McCloud River, bull trout (''S. confluentus'') and Dolly Varden trout (''S. malma'') were considered the same species (''S. malma'') until 1978. Thus the common name "Dolly Varden" gained acceptance for ''S. malma'' for over 100 years. Additionally, the Arctic char (''S. alpinus'') and Russian subspecies have been referred to as Dolly Varden. It is known as in

Description

The back and sides are olive green or muddy gray, shading to white on the belly. The body has scattered pale yellow or pinkish-yellow spots. There are no black spots or wavy lines on the body or fins. Small red spots are present on the lower sides. These are frequently indistinct. The fins are plain and unmarked except for a few light spots on the base of the caudal fin rays. ''S. malma'' is extremely similar in appearance to the bull trout (''S. confluentus'') and Arctic char (''S. alpinus''), so much so that they are sometimes referred to as "native char" without a distinction.

Range

The Dolly Varden trout is found in coastal waters of the

North Pacific 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 ...

from

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...

north along the British Columbia Coast to the Alaska Peninsula and into the eastern

Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands (; ; ale, Unangam Tanangin,”Land of the Aleuts", possibly from Chukchi ''aliat'', "island"), also called the Aleut Islands or Aleutic Islands and known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, are a chain of 14 large v ...

, along the Bering Sea and the Arctic Sea to the Mackenzie River. The range in Asia extends south through the

into northern Japan.

Life cycle

Dolly Varden are found in three distinct forms. A semi-anadromous or sea-run form migrates from fresh water and spends some time in the ocean or saltwater bays and estuaries to feed before returning to fresh water to spawn. Fluvial forms live in moderate to large freshwater riverine environments and migrate into smaller tributaries to spawn. A third form is found in deep, cold lakes, from where they eventually migrate into tributary streams to spawn. Most populations of the northern Dolly Varden (''S. m. malma'') are semi-anadromous, while more fluvial and lacustrine populations are found among the southern Dolly Varden (''S. m. lordi'').

Conservation

In the early 20th century, the Dolly Varden (still including bull trout, and often confused with Arctic char) suffered from a reputation as an undesirable predator of fish such as salmon, steelhead and cutthroat trout. Despite co-evolving with these other species for thousands of years, Dolly Varden were accused of indiscriminately feeding on eggs and fry of other species to their detriment. Between 1921 and 1941, the

Territory of Alaska The Territory of Alaska or Alaska Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from August 24, 1912, until Alaska was granted statehood on January 3, 1959. The territory was previously Russian America, 1784–1867; the ...

, supported by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, had an official extermination program that paid bounties on Dolly Varden. In the

Iliamna Lake Iliamna Lake or Lake Iliamna (Yup'ik: ''Nanvarpak''; Dena'ina Athabascan: ''Nila Vena'') is a lake in southwest Alaska, at the north end of the Alaska Peninsula, between Kvichak Bay and Cook Inlet, about west of Seldovia, Alaska. It shares a n ...

Kvichak River The Kvichak River (Yup'ik: ''Kuicaraq'') is a large river, about long, in southwestern Alaska in the United States. It flows southwest from Lake Iliamna to Kvichak Bay, an arm of Bristol Bay, on the Alaska Peninsula. The communities of Igiugi ...

region in southwest Alaska, the bounty was 2.5 cents per Dolly Varden tail turned into the territorial tax collector. Locals would trap Dolly Varden in nets and weirs, string 40 tails on a hoop of bailing wire and smoke them over a wood fire. One hoop would be worth one dollar. The fish carcasses would be used for dog food. The hoops of fishtails were then used as currency to pay for supplies, or in some reports, airfare with local bush pilots. The northern Dolly Varden in the Canadian province of British Columbia and in the federal region of the Northwest Territories is listed as a species of special concern.

Fishing

The Dolly Varden is considered and regulated as a

game fish Game fish, sport fish or quarry refer to popular fish pursued by recreational anglers, and can be freshwater or saltwater fish. Game fish can be eaten after being caught, or released after capture. Some game fish are also targeted commercial ...

in the U.S. and Canada. Dolly Varden make up a sizable percentage of the catch in Alaskan subsistence fisheries where salmon are not abundant. Anglers will use a variety of lures to catch dolly varden, but when fishing during salmon spawning season, salmon roe is the bait of choice.

References

Dolly Varden trout The Dolly Varden trout (''Salvelinus malma'') is a species of salmonid fish native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. It belongs to the genus '' Salvelinus'', or true chars, which includes 51 recognized ...

Fish of the North Pacific Cold water fish Freshwater fish of the Arctic

Taxa named by Johann Julius Walbaum