Gravenche

The gravenche (Coregonus hiemalis), also known as the Lake Geneva whitefish or the little fera, is a presumably extinct freshwater fish from Lake Geneva in Switzerland and France.

Gravenche
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Salmoniformes
Family: Salmonidae
Genus: Coregonus
Species:
C. hiemalis
Binomial name
Coregonus hiemalis
Jurine, 1825

Description

The gravenche was a species of freshwater whitefish (Coregoninae) that reached a length between 25 and 32 centimetres.[1][2]

The status of the gravenche is disputed because there are no specimens in museums. While Emile Dottrens described it as subspecies of the common whitefish Coregonus lavaretus in 1958, other experts like Maurice Kottelat regarded it as a full species endemic to Lake Geneva.[1][3]

Biology

The gravenche is a benthopelagic freshwater fish that swam in the water column near the lake bottom, feeding upon zooplankton. Spawning occurred in mid-December.[3]

Extinction

Together with the likewise extinct true fera (Coregonus fera), the gravenche was one of the most important species for fisheries in Lake Geneva in the late 19th century. In 1890 these two fishes made up 68% of all fish caught in the lake.[2] Overfishing and eutrophication drove the gravenche to near extinction and it was last seen in the early 1900s.[4][5]

gollark: Yay, an AP sunrise hatchling for my notarmy!
gollark: Fun fact: at normal (non-release) rarities, gusties are twice as rare as CB Golds.
gollark: Also, they would just be coloured rectangles, to save work.
gollark: Nebulae would also get a `Show Constellations` BSA allowing them to influence the probability distribution of the colour of another nebula which has not yet coloured towards their colour.
gollark: They would be entirely RNG-based. One of 16777216 colours would be picked randomly.

References
  1. Maurice Kottelat: European Freshwater Fisches. An heuristic checklist of the freshwater fishes of Europe (exclusive of former USSR), with an introduction for non - systematists and comments on nomenclature and conservation; Biologia: Section Zoology vol. 52/5, Slovak Academic Press, Bratislava 1997, ISBN 80-85665-87-5
  2. Christian Trépey: Corégone (Féra - Palée) www.plongee-passion.ch (in French)
  3. Kottelat, M. & Freyhof, J. (2007). Handbook of European Freshwater Fishes. Cornol & Berlin: Kottelat & Freyhof.
  4. Kottelat M, Freyhof J (2008) Coregonus hiemalis The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species c. 2015-4
  5. Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2016). "Coregonus hiemalis" in FishBase. April 2016 version. Note: this source states that an introduced population of the gravenche, used for stockings, would still exist in the French Lake Aiguebette, in contrast to the IUCN account; this may represent confounding of information on different species.
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