.gif)
Grayling (species)
Encyclopedia
The grayling is a species
of freshwater
fish
in the salmon
family
(family Salmonidae
) of order
Salmoniformes. It is the type species
of its genus
. Native to the Palearctic
ecozone
, the grayling is widespread throughout northern Europe
, from the United Kingdom
and France
to the Ural Mountains
in Russia
. While it was introduced to Morocco
in 1948, it does not appear to have become established there.
(24 in) and a maximum recorded weight of 6.7 kg
(15 lb
). Of typical Thymallus appearance, the grayling proper is distinguished from the similar Arctic grayling
(T. arcticus arcticus) by the presence of 5–8 dorsal
and 3–4 anal spines, which are absent in the other species; T. thymallus also has a smaller number of soft rays in these fins. Individuals of the species have been recorded as reaching an age of 14 years.
The grayling prefers cold, clean, running riverine waters, but also occurs in lakes and, exceptionally, in brackish waters around the Baltic Sea
. Omnivorous, the fish feeds on vegetable matter as well as crustacean
s, insect
s and spider
s, molluscs, zooplankton
, and smaller fishes, including Eurasian minnow
s and yellow perch
. Grayling are also prey for larger fish, including the huchen
(Hucho hucho).
With the Arctic grayling, T. thymallus is one of the economically important Thymallus species, being raised commercially and fished
for sport.
The grayling is a protected species listed in appendix III of the Bern Convention.
The term "grayling" is often used to refer generically to the Thymallus species, and T. thymallus is sometimes called the European grayling for clarity. There are many obsolete synonyms for the species.
The generic name Thymallus derives from the Greek
θύμαλλος,, "thyme
smell", a name derived from the fragrance of wild thyme that freshly caught graylings quite often have.
The grayling is commonly known as the 'lady of the stream'. She used to be persecuted by anglers for her ability to stop trout
colonising stretches of rivers and streams
. They are largely a shoal
species and therefore can out-compete the more individual trout.
In the UK she can be fished for throughout the coarse fishing season (16 June to 14 March), providing thrilling sport on the fly
when the trout
season is closed. Well known grayling flies include: the grayling witch, klinkhamers, czech nymphs and 'red tags' along with other trout
patterns. Flies tied to resemble small pink shrimps have also been found to be useful.
In France
too the season is limited depending upon several factors. The Allier River
is one of the rare places in Southern Europe where the common grayling occurs in a natural habitat. This fish is much valued in French gastronomy for its fine and delicate texture and is best eaten along with a light wine.
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
of freshwater
Freshwater
Fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and...
fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
in the salmon
Salmon
Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...
family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
(family Salmonidae
Salmonidae
Salmonidae is a family of ray-finned fish, the only living family currently placed in the order Salmoniformes. It includes salmon, trout, chars, freshwater whitefishes and graylings...
) of order
Order (biology)
In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...
Salmoniformes. It is the type species
Type species
In biological nomenclature, a type species is both a concept and a practical system which is used in the classification and nomenclature of animals and plants. The value of a "type species" lies in the fact that it makes clear what is meant by a particular genus name. A type species is the species...
of its genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
. Native to the Palearctic
Palearctic
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is one of the eight ecozones dividing the Earth's surface.Physically, the Palearctic is the largest ecozone...
ecozone
Ecozone
An ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of the Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms.Ecozones delineate large areas of the Earth's surface within which organisms have been evolving in relative isolation over long periods of time, separated from...
, the grayling is widespread throughout northern Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, from the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
to the Ural Mountains
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan. Their eastern side is usually considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia...
in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. While it was introduced to Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
in 1948, it does not appear to have become established there.
Attributes
The grayling grows to a maximum recorded length of 60 cmCentimetre
A centimetre is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one hundredth of a metre, which is the SI base unit of length. Centi is the SI prefix for a factor of . Hence a centimetre can be written as or — meaning or respectively...
(24 in) and a maximum recorded weight of 6.7 kg
Kilogram
The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water...
(15 lb
Pound (mass)
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the Imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement...
). Of typical Thymallus appearance, the grayling proper is distinguished from the similar Arctic grayling
Arctic grayling
Arctic grayling is a species of freshwater fish in the salmon family of order Salmoniformes. It comprises five subspecies native to the Nearctic and Palearctic ecozones. T. a. arcticus is widespread throughout the Arctic and Pacific drainages in Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, as well as the upper...
(T. arcticus arcticus) by the presence of 5–8 dorsal
Dorsal fin
A dorsal fin is a fin located on the backs of various unrelated marine and freshwater vertebrates, including most fishes, marine mammals , and the ichthyosaurs...
and 3–4 anal spines, which are absent in the other species; T. thymallus also has a smaller number of soft rays in these fins. Individuals of the species have been recorded as reaching an age of 14 years.
The grayling prefers cold, clean, running riverine waters, but also occurs in lakes and, exceptionally, in brackish waters around the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
. Omnivorous, the fish feeds on vegetable matter as well as crustacean
Crustacean
Crustaceans form a very large group of arthropods, usually treated as a subphylum, which includes such familiar animals as crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and barnacles. The 50,000 described species range in size from Stygotantulus stocki at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span...
s, insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s and spider
Spider
Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...
s, molluscs, zooplankton
Zooplankton
Zooplankton are heterotrophic plankton. Plankton are organisms drifting in oceans, seas, and bodies of fresh water. The word "zooplankton" is derived from the Greek zoon , meaning "animal", and , meaning "wanderer" or "drifter"...
, and smaller fishes, including Eurasian minnow
Eurasian minnow
The Common minnow is a species offreshwater fish. It is a member of the carpfamily oforder Cypriniformes, and is the type species ofgenus Phoxinus. It is ubiquitous throughout much of Eurasia,...
s and yellow perch
Yellow perch
The yellow perch is a species of perch found in the United States and Canada, where it is often referred to by the shortform perch. Yellow perch look similar to the European perch, but are paler and more yellowish, with less red in the fins. They have six to eight dark, vertical bars on their sides...
. Grayling are also prey for larger fish, including the huchen
Huchen
The huchen or Danube salmon is a species of freshwater fish in the salmon family of order Salmoniformes. It is the type species of its genus...
(Hucho hucho).
With the Arctic grayling, T. thymallus is one of the economically important Thymallus species, being raised commercially and fished
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
for sport.
The grayling is a protected species listed in appendix III of the Bern Convention.
The term "grayling" is often used to refer generically to the Thymallus species, and T. thymallus is sometimes called the European grayling for clarity. There are many obsolete synonyms for the species.
The generic name Thymallus derives from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
θύμαλλος,, "thyme
Thyme
Thyme is a culinary and medicinal herb of the genus Thymus.-History:Ancient Egyptians used thyme for embalming. The ancient Greeks used it in their baths and burnt it as incense in their temples, believing it was a source of courage...
smell", a name derived from the fragrance of wild thyme that freshly caught graylings quite often have.
Angling
Trout
Trout is the name for a number of species of freshwater and saltwater fish belonging to the Salmoninae subfamily of the family Salmonidae. Salmon belong to the same family as trout. Most salmon species spend almost all their lives in salt water...
colonising stretches of rivers and streams
STREAMS
In computer networking, STREAMS is the native framework in Unix System V for implementing character devices.STREAMS was designed as a modular architecture for implementing full-duplex I/O between kernel or user space processes and device drivers. Its most frequent uses have been in developing...
. They are largely a shoal
Shoal
Shoal, shoals or shoaling may mean:* Shoal, a sandbank or reef creating shallow water, especially where it forms a hazard to shipping* Shoal draught , of a boat with shallow draught which can pass over some shoals: see Draft...
species and therefore can out-compete the more individual trout.
In the UK she can be fished for throughout the coarse fishing season (16 June to 14 March), providing thrilling sport on the fly
Artificial fly
An artificial fly or fly lure is a type of fishing lure, usually used in the sport of fly fishing . In general, artificial flies are the bait which fly fishers present to their target species of fish while fly fishing...
when the trout
Trout
Trout is the name for a number of species of freshwater and saltwater fish belonging to the Salmoninae subfamily of the family Salmonidae. Salmon belong to the same family as trout. Most salmon species spend almost all their lives in salt water...
season is closed. Well known grayling flies include: the grayling witch, klinkhamers, czech nymphs and 'red tags' along with other trout
Trout
Trout is the name for a number of species of freshwater and saltwater fish belonging to the Salmoninae subfamily of the family Salmonidae. Salmon belong to the same family as trout. Most salmon species spend almost all their lives in salt water...
patterns. Flies tied to resemble small pink shrimps have also been found to be useful.
In France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
too the season is limited depending upon several factors. The Allier River
Allier River
The Allier is a river in central France, and is the left tributary to the Loire River. Its source is in the Massif Central, in the Lozère département, east of Mende. It flows generally north...
is one of the rare places in Southern Europe where the common grayling occurs in a natural habitat. This fish is much valued in French gastronomy for its fine and delicate texture and is best eaten along with a light wine.