Stechlin cisco
| Coregonus fontanae | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Salmoniformes |
| Family: | Salmonidae |
| Subfamily: | Coregoninae |
| Genus: | Coregonus |
| Species: | C. fontanae |
| Binomial name | |
|
Coregonus fontanae M. Schulz and Freyhof, 2003 |
|
Coregonus fontanae, also known as the Stechlin cisco, Fontane cisco, or Fontane's cisco, is a species of freshwater whitefish in the family Salmonidae endemic to the Großer Stechlinsee in northern Germany. It is believed to have recently evolved from the sympatric vendace, Coregonus albula.
Coregonus fontanae is highly dwarfed, and is believed to be the world's smallest type of cisco. The maximum length recorded for this species is 12.6 centimetres (5.0 in), and 10 centimetres (3.9 in) is believed to be a typical size. Stechlin ciscoes are silvery pink in body color, with a bluish-brown back and glassy fins.
The Stechlin cisco is taxonomically distinguished from the vendace and the other dwarfed cisco species by its low number of lateral line scales (69–77), by some bodily proportions, by the length of its gill rakers, by its slow growth, by its glassy fins, and by its spring spawning season.
The existence of two forms of vendace-like whitefish in Lake Stechlin was noted by G. Bauch in 1953 and A. K. Awand and colleagues in the 1990s. During Maurice Kottelat and Jörg Freyhof's survey of the freshwater fish of Europe, the taxonomic status of the deviating form was more closely examined, and Freyhof with M. Schulz described it as a separate species on the basis of its spring spawning season and small size. They named it in honor of German literary figure Theodor Fontane, whose last completed novel, Der Stechlin, used Lake Stechlin's landscape as a backdrop.
The Stechlin cisco represents the extreme of a pattern of cisco adaptive radiations into dwarf, spring-spawning, cold-tolerant forms in northern European lakes after the last glacial period 12,000 years ago. The results of this evolution in various lakes were formerly considered to be single species, Coregonus trybomi, but and allozyme studies show that the spring-spawning populations in various lakes each evolved independently from the vendace. As of 2009, the Stechlin cisco was one of only three of these dwarf species that had been scientifically described, the third being Coregonus lucinensis from the lake Breiter Luzin, 30 kilometres (19 mi) from the Großer Stechlinsee.
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