Salvelinus profundus

Salvelinus profundus
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Salmoniformes
Family: Salmonidae
Genus: Salvelinus
Species: S. profundus
Binomial name
Salvelinus profundus
(Schillinger, 1901)

Salvelinus profundus (German: Tiefseesaibling 'Deepwater char') is an extinct deepwater char species formerly found only in deep areas of Lake Constance.[2]

This fish could reach 24 cm (9.4 in) in length and had a blunt snout with the mouth in subinferior position. Its lower fins had no white margins and its flanks were silvery to yellowish with pale blue spots; the belly could have a reddish color.[3]

Salvelinus profundus was still a commercial species in the 1960s but the eutrophication of Lake Constance, which began in the 1950s and peaked in 1979, is thought to have affected egg development. Surveys undertaken in the last ten years failed to find any evidence of the survival of this deep-water trout, as well as of the Lake Constance whitefish (Coregonus gutturosus), another fish species driven recently to extinction.[4] The species may have gone extinct since the late 1970s but was declared so by the IUCN only in 2008.

The Lake Neuchâtel deepwater char (Salvelinus neocomensis) is a similar fish species that became extinct earlier in another European lake.[5]

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