The asp (''Leuciscus aspius'') is a species of freshwater

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

belonging to the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Leuciscidae Leuciscidae is a family of freshwater ray-finned fishes, formerly classified as a subfamily of the Cyprinidae, which contains the true minnows. Members of the Old World (OW) clade of minnows within this subfamily are known as European minnow ...

, which includes the daces, minnows and related fishes. This species is found in continental Europe and western Asia.

Taxonomy

The asp was first formally described as ''Cyprinus aspius'' by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

in the 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'' published in 1758, the type locality being given as the lakes of Sweden. It is now classified in the genus ''

Leuciscus ''Leuciscus'' is a genus of freshwater and brackish water ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Leuciscidae, which includes the daces, Eurasian minnows and related species. They are inland water fishes commonly called Eurasian daces. Th ...

'' within the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...

Leuciscinae Leuciscinae is a subfamily of freshwater Actinopterygii, ray-finned fishes belonging to the Family (biology), family Leuciscidae, which includes the fishes known as daces, chubs, shiners and minnows. The fishes in this subfamily are mainly found i ...

of the family

Etymology

The asp is a member of the genus ''Leuciscus'', a name derived tautonymously from the type species' name, '' Cyprinus leuciscus''. ''Leuciscus'' is from the Greek ''leukískos'', a “white mullet” which is a diminutive of ''leukós'', meaning "white", an allusion to the silvery sides of the common dace. The specific name, ''aspius'' , is a latinisation of asp, a name derived from ''esping'' or ''esp'', which are Swedish common names for this fish, these names may be an allusion to the spawning run of this fish being concurrent with the flowering of the

aspen Aspen is a common name for certain tree species in the Populus sect. Populus, of the ''Populus'' (poplar) genus. Species These species are called aspens: * ''Populus adenopoda'' – Chinese aspen (China, south of ''P. tremula'') * ''Populus da ...

tree.

Description

The asp has 3 spines and between 7 and 9 soft rays supporting its

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates. Dorsal fins have evolved independently several times through convergent evolution adapting to marine environments, so the fins are not all homologous. They are found ...

, while the

anal fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the back bone and are supported o ...

contains 3 spines and between 12 and 15 soft rays, 12 to of the anal fin rays are branched. The

lateral line The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water. The sensory ability is achieved via modified epithelia ...

is made up of 64 to 76 scales. The

maxilla In vertebrates, the maxilla (: maxillae ) is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The two maxil ...

reaches past the front margin of the eye. There is a sharp keel between the origin of the pelvic fin and the origin of the anal fin, this keel is covered by scales. The body is long and laterally compressed with the head being long with a pointed snout. The back is green tinted with silver and blue, the sides are paler, and the belly is silvery white. The pectoral, pelvic and anal fins are coloured grey to brown. This species has a maximum

total length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies, for data used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fishery biology. Overall length Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish measured f ...

of , although is more typical, and a maximum published weight of .

Distribution and habitat

The asp is native to large lowland rivers and lakes in Europe. It is native to river systems which drain into the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

, the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

, the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea 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 bound ...

Sea of Azov The Sea of Azov is an inland Continental shelf#Shelf seas, shelf sea in Eastern Europe connected to the Black Sea by the narrow (about ) Strait of Kerch, and sometimes regarded as a northern extension of the Black Sea. The sea is bounded by Ru ...

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some . In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn con ...

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, described as the List of lakes by area, world's largest lake and usually referred to as a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, ...

and

Aral Sea The Aral Sea () was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan to its north and Uzbekistan to its south, which began shrinking in the 1960s and had largely dried up into desert by the 2010s. It was in the Aktobe and Kyzylorda regions of Kazakhst ...

. In the North and Baltic Sea drainages this species occurs from the drainages of the

Weser The Weser () is a river of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It begins at Hannoversch Münden through the confluence of the Werra and Fulda. It passes through the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Its mouth is further north against the ports o ...

and

Elbe The Elbe ( ; ; or ''Elv''; Upper Sorbian, Upper and , ) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Republic), then Ge ...

east, including southern Norway, Sweden and Finland to the

Baltic states The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...

. It is found in most of the river systems draining into the Black Sea and Sea of Azov but is not found on the Crimean Peninsula, the coastal drainages in Bulgaria south of the

Danube Delta The Danube Delta (, ; , ) is the second largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. Occurring where the Danube, Danube River empties into the Black Sea, most of the Danube Delta lies in Romania ...

, northern Turkey east of the Yenice River, Georgia, and the Russian coast east of the

Kerch Strait The Kerch Strait is a strait in Eastern Europe. It connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, separating the Kerch Peninsula of Crimea in the west from the Taman Peninsula of Russia's Krasnodar Krai in the east. The strait is to wide and up ...

. Asps are found in all of the rivers draining into the Caspian Sea, except for those on the eastern coast. In the Balkans it is found only in the drainage systems of the Struma and

Maritsa Maritsa or Maritza ( ), also known as Evros ( ) and Meriç ( ), is a river that runs through the Balkans in Southeast Europe. With a length of ,

in Greece and Bulgaria, and also in Lake Volvi, Greece. Outside of its native range the asp has been artificially introduced to the

Scheldt The Scheldt ( ; ; ) is a river that flows through northern France, western Belgium, and the southwestern part of Netherlands, the Netherlands, with its mouth at the North Sea. Its name is derived from an adjective corresponding to Old Englis ...

in France, Belgium and the Netherlands; the

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

in Germany; the

Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...

and

Loire The Loire ( , , ; ; ; ; ) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône. It rises in the so ...

rivers in France; the Muga River in Spain; the Po River in Italy; the

Northern Dvina The Northern Dvina (, ; ) is a river in northern Russia flowing through Vologda Oblast and Arkhangelsk Oblast into the Dvina Bay of the White Sea. Along with the Pechora River to the east, it drains most of Northwest Russia into the Arctic O ...

River in Russia; and Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan.

Biology

The asp is rare among cyprinoid fishes in that it is a predatory fish which feeds on other fishes and even small waterbirds. The juveniles are gregarious predators, but the adults are solitary, or hunt in small groups. At all ages their main prey is fish, particularly the common bleak (''Alburnus alburnus'') and European smelt (''Osmerus eperlanus''). They can live for over 10 years. The spawn in the Spring, from mid-March to mid-April in Europe and as late as May in the Volga.The females release their eggs over gravel or in submerged vegetation and they stick to the substrate. Some populations are migratory and forage in estuaries or brackish seas and migrate into freshwater to breed, starting to migrate upstream in October and remaining in the rivers until the Spring. The asp and the ide (''leuciscus idus'') frequently hybridise where their ranges overlap.

Human utilisation

The asp is used as both a food fish and for sport fishing. Image:Asprom.jpg, Eggs from asp File:Asp 4kg.jpg, A 4-kg asp caught in Biesbosch, NL File:Aspius aspius Prague Vltava 1.jpg, Asp on exhibition ''Subaqueous Vltava'' in Prague

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Fish described in 1758 Fish of Russia Fish of the Caspian Sea Leuciscus Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Habitats Directive species