Salmo [Artedi] Linnaeus, 1758
Mouth large, lower jaw reaching back beyond hind margin of eye, upper jaw to or beyond the same point; teeth well developed on jaws, tongue, palatines and on both head and shaft of vomer (but deciduous in adults). A distinct gap between orbital bones and anterior margin of preoperculum. Anal fin with 7-10 branched finrays. Scales small, about 100-150 in lateral line. Vertebrae 51-62. Body with dark spots on light background.
Habitat: adults in sea not forming shoals, making considerable migrations, often transatlantic (but life in sea not well known); juveniles in streams, rivers or estuaries. Food: at sea, crustaceans and small fishes (herring, sprat, sand-eels, capelin, small gadids); in freshwater, adults do not feed, but juveniles take mainly aquatic larvae of insects. Reproduction: spawning runs April to August, the adults ascending far upstream, but not actually spawning until October-December at 5-6 years of age. Females dig and shape a 'nest' or redd in the gravel bottom, eggs and sperm are ejected simultaneously and the redd covered; partly grown males (parr) often contribute sperm also; spent adults (kelts) return to the sea, some to spawn the following year, a very few to spawn a third time, and hardly any a fourth time. Juveniles remain in streams and rivers as parr for 1-3 (rarely 4) years before descending as smolts.
Distribution: Atlantic coasts of Europe, from Barents Sea, northern Norway and Baltic southward to northern Portugal, also around Iceland and southern Greenland; not in Mediterranean. Elsewhere, coasts of Canada and North America.
Species 13 or 14; in Clofnam area 2.
Recent revisions: Dorofeeva et al. (1980).
Species of this genus in the program:
Salmo salar
Salmo trutta