| Coregonus
oxyrinchus
|
HOME |
| |
| Kingdom |
Animalia |
Images:
houting, Coregonus oxyrinchus (upper image
is fig. 293 and the lower image of the head is fig. 294, both on page 648)
from 'An Introduction to the Study of Fishes' by Albert C. L. G. Günther
(1880). These
images are in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This
applies to the United States, Canada, the European Union and those
countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years.
|
| Phylum |
Chordata |
| Class |
Actinopterygii |
| Order |
Salmoniformes
|
| Family |
Salmonidae
|
| Subfamily |
Coregoninae |
| Genus |
Coregonus |
| Species |
Coregonus oxyrinchus |
| Authority |
(Linnaeus, 1758) |
| |
| English
Name |
Houting, North
Sea Houting |
| Czech
Name |
Síh Ostronosý |
| Danish
Name |
Snæbel |
| Dutch
Name |
Houting, Noordzeehouting |
| Finnish
Name |
Järvisiika, Siika |
| French
Name |
Bondelle |
| German
Name |
Nordseeschnäpel, Snepel |
| Italian
Name |
Coregone Musino |
| Norwegian
Name |
Nebbsik |
| Portuguese
Name |
Coregono-Bicudo |
| Spanish Name |
Corégono Picudo |
| Swedish
Name |
Näbbsik, Nordsjösik |
| |
| Synonyms |
Salmo
oxyrinchus Linnaeus, 1758; Salmo
thymallus latus Bloch, 1782;
Tripteronotus hautin Lacepède, 1803; Salmo
rostratus Shaw, 1804 |
| |
| Taxonomy |
The
houting, Coregonus oxyrinchus, is redescribed and a neotype is
designated (BMNH 1862.11.20.1.). 'Houtings' from the Danish North Sea
basin and German rivers from Eider, Elbe west to Ems are Coregonus
maraena, a species widespread in Baltic basin (Hansen
et al. 1999; Freyhof & Schöter, 2005). The 'Houtings' found in the
Rhine are introduced Coregonus maraena and a yet unknown and
undescribed species called Coregonus sp. 'Rhine' (Freyhof
& Schöter, 2005).
|
| |
| Characteristics |
Coregonus
oxyrinchus is distinguished from other coregonids by having 38-46 gill
rakers and a long, pointed snout (Freyhof
&
Schöter, 2005). |
| |
| Food |
Houting
feeds on zooplankton, supplemented by benthic invertebrates in adults. (Freyhof
& Kottelat, 2008) |
| |
| Reproduction |
The
Houting spawns in October-December in rivers. Young move to brackish
habitats where they remain until maturity. (Freyhof & Kottelat, 2008) |
| |
| Range
& Habitat |
 The
houting occurred in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the
United Kingdom (Freyhof & Schöter, 2005; Freyhof & Kottelat, 2008). This species
was restricted to the southeast coast of England and the lower parts of
the Rivers Rhine, Meuse (exceptionally northern France) and Schelde (Freyhof
& Kottelat, 2008; Freyhof &
Schöter, 2005). It ascended
the River Rhine up to Köln. However, it is recorded to have reached
Strasbourg in France, but this is probably erroneous. (Freyhof
& Kottelat, 2008) The
houting had never been found in pure marine waters in the Netherlands (Redeke,
1934), therefore the houting does not normally leave estuarine waters.
Image:
map with the possible historical distribution of the Houting (in
red). Created by Peter Maas
for The Extinction Website. This
image has been released under
the Creative
Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 3.0 Licence.
|
| |
| History
& Population |
The
houting is known to have occurred in England. Single specimens have been
collected from Lincolnshire in 1877, Chichester in 1880, and the mouth of
the River Medway in 1881 (Day, 1880-1884). Another specimen is labelled as
coming from the 'South Coast of England' (Freyhof & Schöter, 2005). In
1911, C.T. Regan reported the houting in England only from markets, where
they had been imported from the Netherlands. It is unlikely that houting
colonised English waters by marine dispersal from continental European
rivers, as this species has never been recorded in pure marine waters in
the Netherlands (Redeke, 1034). The English population probably
represented a relict houting population that had dispersed to in southern
England in early glacial periods, when there was less of a marine barrier.
It probably became extinct in England in the late 19th century. (Freyhof &
Schöter, 2005)
After its decline during the late
19th century, the remaining houting population in the lower Rhine
collapsed in the first three decades of the 20th century (Lelek &
Buhse, 1992; Freyhof & Schöter, 2005). The
houting is now considered globally extinct; the last individual was caught
in the lower Rhine in 1940 (Bauch, 1958; Lelek & Buhse, 1992; Freyhof &
Schöter, 2005). Many surveys
have been undertaken since (most recently in 2005) within its previous
range, and the species has never been recorded (Freyhof
& Kottelat, 2008). |
| |
| Extinction
Causes |
The
houting relied upon estuaries and brackish water to forage, where
pollution was at it its most concentrated and coregonids are very
sensitive to pollution (Freyhof
& Kottelat, 2008). The houting became extinct due to pollution
and overfishing (Lelek & Buhse, 1992).
|
| |
| Conservation
Attempts |
The
houting is listed as a species of priority interest to nature conservation
in Europe (EWG, 1997). Attempts at re-introduction of houting to the Rhine
began in 1992 with fish originating from the River Vida, Denmark (Freyhof,
2002). Now it is known that these 're-introduced' fish are not true
houting, but from the species Coregonus maraena. (Freyhof
& Schöter, 2005)
|
| |
| Museum
Specimens |
The
neotype specimen and one other specimen are kept in the Natural History
Museum (BMNH) in London, England. Other specimens can be found in the
Naturhistorisches Museum Bern (NMBE) in Switzerland, Muséum National d’Histoire
Naturelle (MNHN) in Paris in France, Zoölogisch Museum Amsterdam (ZMA) in
the Netherlands, and the Zoologische Staatssammlung München (ZSM) in
Germany. (Freyhof & Schöter, 2005) |
| |
| Relatives |
Relatives
of the Houting are the surviving European Coregonus species, like Coregonus
maraena, Coregonus widegreni and the undescribed Coregonus
sp. 'Rhine' . |
| |
| Links |
Houting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
IUCN
Red List of Threatened Species - Coregonus oxyrinchus
|
| |
|
References
(Complete
website)
|
Bauch,
G. (1958). Untersuchungen über die Gründe für den Ertragsrückgang der
Elbfischerei zwischen Elbsandsteingebirge und Boitzenburg. Zeitschrift für
Fischerei und deren Hilfswissenschaften 7, 161—437.
Day, F. (1880-1884). The Fishes of
Great Britain and Ireland. London & Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate.
EWG (1997). Richtlinie 97/62/EG des
Rates vom 27 Oktober 1997 zur Anpassung der Richtlinie 92/42/EWG zur
Erhaltung der natu¨ rlichen Lebensra¨ume sowie der wild lebenden Tiere
und Pflanzen an den technischen and wissenschaftlichen Fortschritt.
Amtsblatt der Europa¨ischen Gemeinschaften Reihe L305, 42—65.
Freyhof, J. (2002). Freshwater fish
diversity in Germany, threats and species extinction. In Conservation of
Freshwater Fishes: Options for the Future (Collares-Pereira, M. J., Cowx,
I. G. & Coelho, M. M., eds), pp. 3—22. Oxford: Blackwell Science.
Freyhof,
J. & Kottelat, M. 2008. Coregonus oxyrinchus. In: IUCN 2008.
2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. <www.iucnredlist.org>.
Downloaded on 15 November 2008.
Freyhof, J. and C. Schöter. 2005.
The houting Coregonus oxyrinchus(L.)(Salmoniformes: Coregonidae), a
globally extinct species from the North Sea basin. Journal of Fish Biology
67:3, 713-729.
Hansen, M. M., Mensberg, K.-L. D.
& Berg, S. (1999). Postglacial recolonization patterns and genetic
relationships among whitefish (Coregonus sp.) populations in Denmark,
inferred from mitochondrial DNA and microsatellite markers. Molecular
Ecology 8, 239-252.
Lelek, A. & Buhse, G. (1992).
Fische des Rheins — fru¨her und heute. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York:
Springer.
Redeke, H. C. (1934). Über den
Rheinschnäpel, Coregonus oxyrhynchus L. Verhandlungen der Internationalen
Vereinigung fu¨r Limnologie 6, 352—357.
Regan, C. T. (1911). The Freshwater
Fishes of the British Isles. London: Methuen.
Schöter C., 2002. Revision der
Schnäpel und Großen Maränen des Nordseeund südwestlichen Ostseeraumes
(Teleostei: Coregonidae). Diplomarbeit, Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität,
Bonn.
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Last
updated: 18th January 2009.
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page is a part of The
Extinction Website.
© 2000-2009. |