''Pogonichthys'', the splitails, is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of freshwater

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

belonging to the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Leuciscidae Leuciscidae is a family of freshwater ray-finned fishes, formerly classified as a subfamily of the Cyprinidae, which contains the true minnows. Members of the Old World (OW) clade of minnows within this subfamily are known as European minnow ...

, the shiners, daces and minnows. These fishes are native to western

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. The common name is inspired by the distinctive appearance of the tail fin, in which the upper lobe is distinctly larger. Of the two species, only the Sacramento splittail survives; the Clear Lake splittail became extinct in the mid-1970s.

Species

''Pogonichthys'' contains the following species: * '' Pogonichthys ciscoides'' Hopkirk, 1974 (Clear Lake splittail) * '' Pogonichthys macrolepidotus'' ( Ayres, 1854) (Sacramento splittail)

References

* Pogonichthyinae Fish of North America Fish of the United States Taxa named by Spencer Fullerton Baird Fish genera with one living species {{Leuciscinae-stub