| Coregonus
oxyrinchus |
||
| 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 | ||
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References |
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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