The Volga pikeperch, or Volga zander (''Sander volgensis''), 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 perch family

Percidae The Percidae are a family of ray-finned fish, part of the order Perciformes, which are found in fresh and brackish waters of the Northern Hemisphere. The majority are Nearctic, but there are also Palearctic species. The family contains more ...

. It is found in

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, and

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Description

The Volga pikeperch is considerably smaller than the

zander The zander (''Sander lucioperca''), sander or pikeperch, is a species of ray-finned fish from the family Percidae, which includes the perches, ruffes and darters. It is found in freshwater and brackish habitats in western Eurasia. It is a popul ...

or common pike-perch (''Sander lucioperca''). It grows to a maximum length of , weighing 2 kg. It differs from ''Sander lucioperca'' by not having large "vampire" like canine teeth, also the colour is more silvery-grey than green, with much more distinguishable dark stripes on the side. Its second dorsal fin has nineteen to twenty-one branched soft rays and the number of scales along the lateral line is seventy to eighty-three.

Distribution and habitat

The Volga pikeperch is found in the northern

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

basin from the

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , p ...

, as far upstream as

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, to the

Kuban River The Kuban; Circassian: Псыжъ, ''Psyẑ'' or Псыжь, ''Psyź'' ; abq, Къвбина, ''Q̇vbina'' ; Karachay–Balkar: Къобан, ''Qoban''; Nogai: Кобан, ''Qoban'') is a river in Russia that flows through the Western Cauca ...

drainages. It is also present 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 ...

basin in the

Volga River 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 catchme ...

and

Ural River The Ural (russian: Урал, ), known before 1775 as Yaik (russian: Яик, ba, Яйыҡ, translit=Yayıq, ; kk, Жайық, translit=Jaiyq, ), is a river flowing through Russia and Kazakhstan in the continental border between Europe and Asia ...

drainages. It inhabits large, turbid rivers and lakes, as well as brackish estuaries and may make short migrations to breed.

Biology

The Volga pikeperch is most active at dusk and dawn when it feeds on small fish and invertebrates. Males become mature by the age of three or four and females a year later, at a minimum length of . Breeding takes place during April and May in shallow water with a sandy or gravelly bottom. The male scrapes a shallow depression in the substrate or among the roots of vegetation in which the female deposits one of two or three small batches of eggs. The larvae and juvenile fish are

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 ...

and feed on

zooplankton Zooplankton are the animal component of the planktonic community ("zoo" comes from the Greek word for ''animal''). Plankton are aquatic organisms that are unable to swim effectively against currents, and consequently drift or are carried along by ...

Taxonomy

The Volga pikeperch was first formally described as ''Perca volgensis'' in 1789 by the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

naturalist, botanist, entomologist,

herpetologist Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians ( gymnophiona)) and rep ...

, and

malacologist Malacology is the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with the study of the Mollusca (mollusks or molluscs), the second-largest phylum of animals in terms of described species after the arthropods. Mollusks include snails and slugs, clams, ...

Johann Friedrich Gmelin (1748–1804) with the type locality given as the

and the

in Russia. The Volga pikeperch is part of the European clade within the genus ''Sander'' which split from a common ancestor with the North American clade, which the

walleye The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the yellow pike or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relat ...

(''S. vitreus'') and the

sauger The sauger (''Sander canadensis'') is a freshwater perciform fish of the family Percidae that resembles its close relative, the walleye. The species is a member of the largest vertebrate order, the Perciformes.Jaeger, Matthew. 2004. Montana's ...

(''S. canadensis'') belong to, around 20.8 million years ago. Within the European clade the Volga pikeperch (''S. volgaensis'') is the most basal taxon and shares features with the North American clade, such as being a broadcast spawner. In contrast in the

(''S. lucioperca'') and the estuarine perch ('' S. marinus'') the males build nests and the female spawn into these nests and the males then guard the eggs and fry. The lineage leading to the zander is thought to have diverged from the common ancestor with the Volga pikeperch circa 13.8 million years ago.

Status

The IUCN has listed the Volga pikeperch as being of "

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

". It has a wide range, and although the population trend is unknown, no particular threats have been identified.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q847041 Sander (fish) Freshwater fish of Europe Fish of the Black Sea Fish of the Caspian Sea Fish described in 1789 Taxa named by Johann Friedrich Gmelin Taxonomy articles created by Polbot