Species: Spirinchus thaleichthys
Longfin Smelt
Species
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Encyclopedia of Puget Sound
Articles:
A river spawning species of forage fish known as the longfin smelt is rare and getting rarer in the Salish Sea. Biologists are looking into the mysterious decline of the ‘hooligans’ of the Nooksack.
Lake Washington was heavily contaminated by untreated sewage until extensive pollution controls by the city of Seattle.
Classification
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Craniata
Class
Actinopterygii
Order
Osmeriformes
Family
Osmeridae
Genus
Spirinchus
NatureServe
Classification
Other Global Common Names
éperlan d'hiver
Informal Taxonomy
Animals, Vertebrates - Fishes - Bony Fishes - Other Bony Fishes
Formal Taxonomy
Animalia - Craniata - Actinopterygii - Osmeriformes - Osmeridae - Spirinchus - See Begle (1991) for a classification and phylogeny of osmeroid fishes based on morphology.
Ecology and Life History
Short General Description
An andromous smelt.
Habitat Type Description
Freshwater
Migration
true - true - true - Some populations are anadromous; migrate up coastal rivers to spawn. Some populations make seasonal shifts within estuaries (e.g., San Francisco Bay area and Delta; Moyle 2002). Males precede females to spawning sites. Other populations landlocked.
Non-migrant
true
Locally Migrant
true
Food Comments
Eats small crustaceans and fishes.
Reproduction Comments
Spawns in second year in southern part of range. In British Columbia, spawns October-November; in California, December-February. According to Wang (1986, cited in USFWS 1994), spawns as early as November, as late as June, with peak February-April (evidently pertains to California). Females lay 5000-24,000 adhesive eggs. Eggs hatch in about 40 days (Lee et al. 1980). Young move downstream to lake or sea. Some adults survive spawning. In the Sacramento-San Joaquin system, California, good recruitment is postively correlated with high outflows into Suisun and San Pablo bays (better rearing habitat than areas farther upstream).
Ecology Comments
Important as food for birds and piscivorous fishes.
Length
14
Conservation Status
NatureServe Global Status Rank
G5
Global Status Last Reviewed
2007-06-25
Global Status Last Changed
1998-08-10
Distribution
Conservation Status Map
<img src="http://www.natureserve.org/explorer/servlet/GetMapGif?CA.BC=S4&US.AK=S4&US.CA=S1&US.OR=S4&US.WA=S3" alt="Conservation Status Map" style="width: 475px; height: auto;" />
Global Range
G - 200,000-2,500,000 square km (about 80,000-1,000,000 square miles) - G - Range extends along the Pacific coast of North America from the Sacramento-San Joaquin estuary and Monterey Bay (single record), California, north to the southwestern Gulf of Alaska (westward beyond Prince William Sound to the base of the Alaska Peninsula), Alaska; landlocked populations occurs in Harrison Lake, British Columbia, and lakes Washington and Union, Washington (Page and Burr 1991, Moyle 2002, Wydoski and Whitney 2003). Range includes Willapa Bay, Skagit Bay, Columbia River, Grays Harbor, and Puget Sound in Washington; Coos Bay and Yaquina Bay in Oregon; Fraser River estuary and near Prince Rupert and Vancouver in British Columbia; Dixon Entrance, Yakutat Bay, Prince William Sound, and Cook Inlet in Alaska, Klamath River mouth (few confirmed records), Humboldt Bay (large decline, extirpated?), Eel River mouth (little suitable habitat, no recent records), Van Duzen River in Eel River drainage, Russian River estuary, San Francisco Bay-Sacramento-San Joaquin estuary, and the Gulf of the Farallones in California (U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1994, Moyle et al. 1995, Mecklenburg et al. 2002, Moyle 2002, Wydoski and Whitney 2003).
Global Range Code
G
Global Range Description
200,000-2,500,000 square km (about 80,000-1,000,000 square miles)