''Coregonus albula'', known as the vendace or as the European cisco, is a species of

freshwater whitefish The freshwater whitefish are fishes of the subfamily Coregoninae, which contains whitefishes (both freshwater and anadromous) and ciscoes, and is one of three subfamilies in the salmon family Salmonidae. Apart from the subfamily Coregoninae, ...

in the family

Salmonidae Salmonidae (, ) is a family (biology), family of ray-finned fish, the only extant member of the suborder Salmonoidei, consisting of 11 extant genera and over 200 species collectively known as "salmonids" or "salmonoids". The family includes salmo ...

. It is found in lakes in northern Europe, especially Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Russia and Estonia, and in some lakes of Norway, the United Kingdom, northern Germany, and Poland. It is also found in diluted

brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...

water in the Gulfs of

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

and Bothnia, both of which are in 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 length of an adult is normally about . The maximum age is about ten years. The vendace is traditionally the most important target of freshwater fisheries in parts of

Fennoscandia __NOTOC__ Fennoscandia (Finnish language, Finnish, Swedish language, Swedish and ; ), or the Fennoscandian Peninsula, is a peninsula in Europe which includes the Scandinavian Peninsula, Scandinavian and Kola Peninsula, Kola peninsulas, mainland ...

and Russia. Vendace

roe Roe, ( ) or hard roe, is the fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries, or the released external egg masses, of fish and certain marine animals such as shrimp, scallop, sea urchins and squid. As a seafood, roe is used both as a cooking, c ...

is considered a delicacy, which has been granted a PDO status in the Swedish

Bothnian Bay The Bothnian Bay or Bay of Bothnia (; ) is the northernmost part of the Gulf of Bothnia, which is in turn the northern part of the Baltic Sea. The land holding the bay is still rising after the weight of ice-age glaciers has been removed, and ...

archipelago ( Kalix löjrom).

Description

The vendace is a slim and streamlined fish with an

adipose 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 only b ...

- an additional small fin on the back between the

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 ...

and the tail (caudal fin) which is typical in the salmon family. Its lower jaw is longer than the upper one. It is similar in appearance to both the common whitefish (''Coregonus lavaretus'' sensu lato), whose upper jaw is longer than its lower one, and the peled (''Coregonus peled''), whose jaws are of equal length. The back is bluish green or brown, the flanks are silvery and the belly white. This fish seldom grows more than long.

Biology

Vendace mainly feed on zooplankton, such as small

crustacean Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...

s and their larvae, but larger fish also feed on floating insects and fish fry. The fish live in schools made up of large groups of individuals. They lay their eggs on pebbly or sandy ground, some in shallow water and others at depths of down to . The fish mature at a young age and most spawn for the first time in their second year, but a few may breed in their first autumn.

Systematics

The European vendace is very closely related to the Siberian '' Coregonus sardinella'' (sardine cisco) and also to '' C. peled'', although phenotypic differences are clear.Bernatchez L, Colombani F, Dodson JJ (1991
Phylogenetic relationships among the subfamily Coregoninae as revealed by mitochondrial DNA restriction analysis
''Journal of Fish Biology'' 39 (Suppl A):283-290. Within the vendace, taxonomic subdivisions have been suggested both on geographical grounds and between sympatric ecotypes.

FishBase FishBase is a global species database of fish species (specifically finfish). It is the largest and most extensively accessed online database on adult finfish on the web.

lists the British populations of vendace as a separate species, '' Coregonus vandesius'', but this distinction is not accepted by all scientists. ''Coregonus albula'' generally breeds in the autumn, but in several North European lakes distinct spring-spawning populations of vendace exist, some of which have been described as separate species: in Sweden, as '' Coregonus trybomi'', and in two lakes of northern Germany, as '' Coregonus fontanae'' and ''Coregonus lucinensis''. These populations are sympatric with autumn-spawning vendace and seem to have evolved post-glacially from them independently in each lake. Viitasaari

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q754061 albula Fish described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Freshwater fish of Europe

Description

Biology

Systematics

See also

References