Other Free Encyclopedias :: Animal Life Resource :: Fishes and Other Cold-Blooded Vertebrates

Salmons: Salmoniformes - Behavior And Reproduction, Conservation Status, Chinook Salmon (oncorhynchus Tshawytscha): Species Accounts, Atlantic Salmon (salmo Salar): Species Accounts - PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS, GEOGRAPHIC RANGE, HABITAT, DIET, SALMONS AND

CHINOOK SALMON (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha): SPECIES ACCOUNTS
ATLANTIC SALMON (Salmo salar): SPECIES ACCOUNTS
BROOK TROUT (Salvelinus fontinalis): SPECIES ACCOUNTS

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

The salmon group includes salmons, trouts, whitefishes, and graylings. These fishes can be more than 5 feet (1.5 meters) long and weigh more than 100 pounds (45 kilograms). Salmons have streamlined bodies that are covered with small, smooth scales. Salmons have a small adipose (AE-dih-POS) fin between the dorsal (DOOR-suhl) fin, or the fin along the midline of the back, and the powerful tail fin.

GEOGRAPHIC RANGE

Salmons live in the Northern Hemisphere.

HABITAT

Many salmons spawn, or release eggs, in freshwater and migrate (MY-grayt), or move, to the sea to mature. Some salmons spawn near the ocean shore and have no real freshwater phase. Others never leave freshwater.

DIET

Some salmons eat plankton, or microscopic plants and animals drifting in bodies of water, and bottom-dwelling invertebrates (in-VER-teh-brehts), which are animals without a backbone. Other salmons eat other fishes.

SALMONS AND PEOPLE

Salmons are important commercial and sport fishes.