TROUT SPECIES
Welp, here's the list...
Below, are essentially all the Salmonids (or "ray-finned" fishes). I'm fishing for the two sub-families:
Salmoninae: trout, salmon, char
Thymallinae: grayling
“One reason Paul caught more fish than anyone else was that he had his flies in the water more than anyone else. ‘Brother,’ he would say, ‘there are no flying fish in Montana. Out here, you can't catch fish with your flies in the air.’”
-Norman Maclean, “A River Runs Through It” (1976)
Sorry to all the Coregoninae sub-family (whitefish) out there... it's nothing personal... I'm sure our paths will cross, you just didn't quite make the cut this time around.
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One of the difficulties in compiling this list that there is still quite a bit of debate about species classifications and common names.
Grayling are pretty straight-forward.... all of them are in the same genus.
The Salmoninae crew is divided into several genera. Here's a general break-down:
Brachymystax (4 species):
Most primitive and ancient genus of all Salmonid fishes. These fish are the link between salmonid fishes (Salmonidae) and grayling (Thymallidae).
Hucho/Parahucho (5 species):
Known as "Taimen" these are large large fish found in Europe and Asia.
Oncorhynchus (12 species/29 sub-species):
Salmon and trout with native ranges in waters draining to the Pacific Ocean. Their range extends from the Arctic Ocean southwards to Taiwan (in the west) and to Mexico (to the east). In North America, some subspecies are native to the Rio Grande which drains to the Gulf of Mexico, rather than to the Pacific.) The name is derived from the ónkos meaning "bend" and rhúnkhos meaning “snout”; referring to the hooked jaws of males during the mating season.
Salmo (47 species/10 sub-species):
Salmon and trout species with native water draining into the Atlantic Ocean. Their range extends to Northern Africa and Western Asia around the Black Sea basin. All but one species, the Atlantic salmon, are natively found in Europe.
Salvelinus (51 species):
Char species, though some are inaccurately called 'trout'. Found in northern circumpolar waters. Most char may be identified by light-cream, pink, or red spots over a darker body and fins that are trimmed with white/cream leading edges.
Salvethymus (1 species):
The guy that was formerly known as the "species that belonged to the Salvelinus clan".
Whew...... that's a helluva list...... Hear of a fish that I don't have listed? Send me info and I'll research (when I'm not fishing, of course).