The Crescenti cutthroat trout or the Lake Crescent cutthroat trout is a North American freshwater fish, a local

form Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens. Form may also refer to: *Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter dat ...

(f. loc.) of the

coastal cutthroat trout The coastal cutthroat trout (''Oncorhynchus clarkii'', sometimes referred as ''Oncorhynchus clarkii clarkii''), also known as the sea-run cutthroat trout, blue-back trout or harvest trout, is one of the four speciesTrotter, Patrick; Bisson, Pete ...

(''Oncorhynchus clarkii clarkii'') isolated in

Lake Crescent Lake Crescent is a deep lake located entirely within Olympic National Park in Clallam County, Washington, United States, approximately west of Port Angeles on U.S. Route 101, near the small community of Piedmont. With an official maximum ...

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

. While previously attributed to a distinct

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

''Oncorhynchus clarkii crescenti'', it is not currently recognized at the subspecies rank. However the cutthroat trout of Lake Crescent do remain distinct. They have the highest known

gill raker Gill rakers in fish are bony or cartilaginous processes that project from the branchial arch (gill arch) and are involved with suspension feeding tiny prey. They are not to be confused with the gill filaments that compose the fleshy part of th ...

and

vertebra Each vertebra (: vertebrae) is an irregular bone with a complex structure composed of bone and some hyaline cartilage, that make up the vertebral column or spine, of vertebrates. The proportions of the vertebrae differ according to their spina ...

e counts of any coastal cutthroat population. The cutthroat are believed to have been

isolated Isolation is the near or complete lack of social contact by an individual. Isolation or isolated may also refer to: Sociology and psychology *Social isolation *Isolation (psychology), a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory *Emotional iso ...

in Lake Crescent after a

landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, rockslips or rockslides, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, mudflows, shallow or deep-seated slope failures and debris flows. Landslides ...

blocked the eastern outflow of the lake. Before the introduction of non-native trout to the lake, these fish co-existed with the lake's population of coastal

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributary, tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead (sometimes called steelhead trout) is an Fish migration#Classification, ...

known as Beardslee trout. The cutthroat mostly used the lake's inlet stream Barnes Creek for

spawning Spawn is the Egg cell, eggs and Spermatozoa, sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of freely releasing eggs and sperm into a body of water (fresh or marine); the physical act is ...

, while the rainbow trout used the

Lyre River The Lyre River in the U.S. state of Washington flows out of Lake Crescent in the Olympic National Park and into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Originally referred to as "singing waters" by the Indians living near it, the river was first named Rio d ...

for spawning. However, in the early 1980s a small cutthroat population was found in the Lyre River that spawns further downstream than the native rainbow trout. Today the cutthroat of Barnes Creek have been hybridized with introduced rainbow into

cutbow The cutbow (''Oncorhynchus'' sp. × ''mykiss'') is an hybrid (biology)#Interspecific hybrids, interspecific fertile hybrid between rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') and cutthroat trout (''Oncorhynchus'' sp.). Based on currently accepted tax ...

s, but Crescenti cutthroat trout persist in the Lyre River as a genetically pure population (Behnke 1992). A Crescenti cutthroat caught in 1961 set the state record for cutthroats at and . Behnke, Robert J. ''Native Trout of Western North America'', American Fisheries Society; Monograph 6, 1992 p. 65-69.Trotter, Patrick C. ''Cutthroat: Native trout of the West'', Colorado Associated University Press, 1987, p. 45-47.

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Further reading