Fish of salmonids. Types of salmonids and their description

Salmonids are the only family of fish that make up a suborder of salmonids. There is not a single person who at least once did not try dishes from chum salmon, salmon, grayling or pink salmon. But the fish of salmonids is considered a delicacy among gourmets. Also around the world, the famous red caviar is appreciated. But not everyone knows that the list of representatives, who are called one word "salmon", is quite extensive.

List of salmoniformes

This family consists of such representatives of salmon as pink salmon and lenok, taimen and grayling, char and omul, whitefish and trout, chinook salmon and coho salmon, sockeye salmon and chum salmon and mikizha. Especially known to many salmon and trout, which are called fish of several different species. These names are, as it were, collective.

Salmonids, a list of which are represented here, refer to freshwater and migratory, that is, living in the seas, but spawning going to freshwater rivers. Sometimes this way is worth living for them and their unborn offspring.

The fish of this family live in the oceans - the Pacific and Atlantic, as well as in the fresh waters of the middle and northern latitudes and in the waters of the Northern Hemisphere. Kamchatka is considered to be the largest spawning ground.

Virtually all types of salmon are valued as commercial fish. And they are extracted not only for delicious delicious and valuable meat, but also for the sake of an extremely expensive red caviar, which is also a delicacy. That is why some salmonids are now on the brink of extinction. Some species are even listed in the Red Book to protect them.

Sadkovaya salmon is a salmonid fish, which is bred artificially and cultivated. Fish breeders also breed some kinds of trout.

The main parameters of representatives of salmonids

Body length in representatives of salmon varies from very small sizes, only a few centimeters, up to two meters. The smallest are whitefish, but the salmon, taimen and chinook salmon, being the largest, reach 70 kilos in weight.

Usually the life of these fish is limited to 15 years. But sometimes there are real long-livers among them. For example, it was discovered taimen - salmon fish, which lived more than 50 years and at the time of the capture weighed 105 kilograms! And the size of this long-liver surprised everyone: two and a half meters - that was the length of his body!

Appearance of salmon-like

Representatives of salmoniformes in their structure are extremely close to herring-shaped. Apparently, therefore for a long time they were considered the closest relatives of all known herring. But relatively recently, scientists involved in the study of fish, have proved that this is an independent detachment. Thanks to this discovery, they were separated into a separate group, which they called salmon-like.

The body of these fish is compressed laterally, elongated and covered with round scales. In some species, scales have a ridged edge. Many salmons are distinguished by the presence on the body of specks, a sort of nakrap. A distinctive feature is also the lateral line running along the body.

Fins of salmoniformes

Pectoral fins of all the breeds of this family do not have spiny rays. They are low-seated. But there are six or more rays in the pelvic fins.

There is another interesting difference between these fish. This, for example, dorsal fins, which are observed in salmonids two. One of them is real, with lots of rays. Moreover, salmonids contain from 10 to 16 bones in it, and grayling from 17 to 24. After the present there is another non-radial fin, which is called fat. It is directly opposite the anal fin and is a characteristic feature of the fish of this family.

The structure of salmoniformes

There are also other differences of representatives of this family from all others. For example, salmonid fish have a bladder that connects to the esophagus with a special canal. The intestine is provided with numerous pyloric appendages. The mouth of the fish of the salmon family is bordered on top by two pairs of bones, called premaxillary and maxillary.

An interesting feature is the females, in whom there are no rudimentary oviducts, as a result of which the eggs fall immediately from the ovary directly into the body cavity.

Fish-salmon is also surprising because it has clear eyelids before our eyes. Also, most salmonids do not fully ossify the skeleton until death. For example, the skull almost all consists of cartilage, and the lateral processes do not accentuate the bodies of the vertebrae.

Poaching destroys offspring of salmonids

During spawning, other distinctive features of this family of fish are clearly evident. The fact is that this process occurs only in fresh water. Therefore, passing fish, living in the oceans and seas, where the water is salted, to spawn against the current rise into rivers and streams. Lake salmon, too, return to the place where they were born.

Until now, there are a lot of hypotheses explaining why and why fish need to get to the spawning place at the place of their birth. But poachers do not break this question over their heads. They use this circumstance, mercilessly destroying a huge number of doroguschy fish, ready to produce a myriad of descendants. Nets are put on the way to the spawning ground, explosive packages are used. As a result, a large number of salmonids do not appear on the light.

Poachers act in a similar manner not only because the spawning fish is extremely easy to catch. The question is also based on the fact that salmonids undergo internal metamorphosis before spawning. For example, they degenerate the stomach, liver and intestines, the meat loses its elasticity and fat content, which, naturally, affects the taste of the product.

Salmon spawning

As already noted, in the period before reproduction, the fish body of the family of salmonids changes radically. In addition to losing taste qualities of meat, they are transformed and externally: the body loses its silveriness, its color becomes bright, red and black spots appear on the body, it becomes higher. Males of some breeds acquire humpbacks, which served as the appearance of the name of one of the species - pink salmon.

Changing the jaws of salmon: the upper bends down, and the lower, on the contrary, up, the size of the teeth increases.

Fish-salmon male in the spawning period gets a bright nuptial outfit. Each subspecies and species looks different at this time.

It is known that the absolute majority of migrating salmons die after spawning. This fate awaits the Pacific ketu, sockeye salmon, pink salmon and some others. But among the Atlantic individuals, in particular, salmon, some individuals manage to stay alive. There are cases when spawning of one fish occurred four times, and once the record was recorded - the salmon came to produce offspring for the fifth time!

Trout

Extremely huge list of representatives of salmon. The varieties differ in appearance, as well as in their habitats. An example of this is trout fish - a family of salmonids. After all, it is not one specific species, but the collective name of several. In appearance, not every person is able to determine the exact belonging of an individual to a particular species. But connoisseurs distinguish between Scottish and Alpine, European and American, river and lake, as well as rainbow trout. All representatives of this breed of fish are very beautiful.

Speaking of rainbow trout, it should be noted its advantages over all other species. This unpretentious fish is very tasty, and besides it is extremely beautiful. Its name has appeared due to the bright coloration of the body, which shimmers in the light with all the colors of the rainbow.

Trout is of industrial importance, as it is successfully bred artificially both for hunting and for feeding. In some restaurants, gourmets are offered to choose live fish in special artificial ponds, which cooks are caught with nets and cooked at the customer. To the breed of trout, in addition to the varieties of trout, include taimen and palia.

Chinook

This representative of salmonids spawns mainly in the Koryak Highlands, Kamchatka and the Commander Islands. Chinook is one of the largest salmon of the Pacific Ocean, as well as the largest freshwater northeaster fish. Some individuals reach a weight of sixty kilograms with a body length of almost one and a half meters. Color Chinook is spotted: small spots and points are scattered on top of the head, caudal and dorsal fins and along the upper half of the body.

Keta

Almost all salmonids, photos of which are presented in this article, have specks on the body and fins. But ketu is distinguished by their complete absence. Often, she can see the weak signs of nuptial attire. These are usually pink or grayish stripes that run across the trunk.

During spawning period sharply chum salmon is released among all varieties of salmon. This is due to the fact that her entire body is decorated with transverse red-black with green stripes. And the males of the chum surprise with their huge teeth, which actively grow during this period so that they do not even have the opportunity to close their mouths.

Red salmon

The second name of this representative of salmonids is red fish, as the meat is not pink, like all other representatives of salmon, but intensely red. And during the mating season this species of salmon has a unique coloring: the green head turns into a red torso.

Before spawning the female is engaged in building a nest for her future offspring. She energetically moves the fins over the pebble soil, washing away fine sand and silt. Then sockeye sprouts eggs, which, depending on the temperature of the environment, develops from 50 to 150 days. Until the yolk sac is completely resorbed, the larvae remain in the nests constructed by the female mother.

Grayling

This is one of the most beautiful representatives of salmonids. It has a monotonous dark gray back, and the sides of some species have black spots of very different shapes and sizes. Siberian and yellow-sparse, Amur and Lower Amur, as well as Baikal grayling are distinguished by the presence of a large reddish patch on the sides of the abdomen. Pelvic fins are decorated with red-brown strips. These colored tracks are cast in purple hues. The bright-borded caudal and anal fins of graylings complete the portrait of this handsome man.

Whitefish

This species of salmon is considered polymorphous, since it is rather difficult to distinguish features peculiar to this species. Perhaps, it is worth noting the absence of teeth and the presence of the lower mouth. In some species, you can observe a pronounced rump. Among the salmonids, this species includes the smallest representatives.

The body length of the whitefish can be 10 cm for small varieties and 60 cm for large ones. The lifespan of these fish can reach up to 20 years, but in the catches most often occur individuals from 7 to 10 years. Semi-pass and lake whitefish sometimes grow up to 68 cm in length and can weigh up to 2 kg. The largest specimen that could be caught had a mass of 12 kg.

Talk about salmon can be endlessly - so many amazing and interesting things are connected with this family of fish.