Author: Linnaeus, 1758
Coregonus albula Linnaeus, 1758
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Coregonus albula (Linnaeus, 1758) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: body moderately slender, head relatively small, snout not projecting beyond tip of lower jaw, upper jaw reaching back to level of pupil, tip of lower jaw fitting into groove of upper jaw; mouth almost toothless. Gillrakers 45-52. Pre-dorsal distance greater than distance from dorsal origin to base of last anal finray; dorsal finrays iii-iv 8-9, anal finrays iii-iv 10-12 (13). Scales moderate, 77-85 (86, 88) in lateral line. Vertebrae 57-59 (60). Colour: back green or dark green/blue, flanks silvery white, belly whitish, tip of snout dark. Size: to 260 mm, usually 180-200 mm (nominate subspecies).
Habitat: pelagic in brackish waters (nominate, migratory subspecies), also freshwaters (lacustrine subspecies and populations). Food: planktonic crustaceans. Reproduction: ascend a short distance up rivers in shoals in late August to mid-October, spawning in late autumn and early winter; mature in second year (lacustrine forms later), young descending in late summer.
Distribution: Gulf of Finland and northern part of Gulf of Bothnia, in shore in Baltic; also, about 5 lacustrine subspecies and populations in freshwater.
Eggs, larvae and young stages. Nüsslin, 1908: 178, 182, fig. 7 | Schnakenbeck, 1936: 658, fig. 1-2.
Otoliths (sagitta). Fryd, 1901: 33.
Subspecies
About 5 lacustrine subspecies recognized.