The splittails are a genus ''Pogonichthys'' of

cyprinid Cyprinidae is a family of freshwater fish commonly called the carp or minnow family. It includes the carps, the true minnows, and relatives like the barbs and barbels. Cyprinidae is the largest and most diverse fish family and the largest verte ...

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 li ...

, consisting of two species native to western

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 ...

. The common name is inspired by the distinctive appearance of the tail fin, in which the upper lobe is distinctly larger. Of the two species, only the Sacramento splittail survives; the Clear Lake splittail became extinct in the mid-1970s.

Species

* †''

Pogonichthys ciscoides The Clear Lake splittail (''Pogonichthys ciscoides'') was endemic to California's Clear Lake and its tributaries until its numbers severely declined due to competition from the introduced bluegill and alterations to the flow of inlet streams. In ...

'' Hopkirk, 1974 (Clear Lake splittail) * ''

Pogonichthys macrolepidotus The splittail (''Pogonichthys macrolepidotus''), also called Sacramento splittail, is a cyprinid fish native to the low-elevation waters of the Central Valley in California. It was first described by William O. Ayres in 1854. It is the sole li ...

'' ( Ayres, 1854) (Sacramento splittail)

References

* Fish of North America Fish of the United States Taxa named by Spencer Fullerton Baird Fish genera with one living species {{Leuciscinae-stub