Thymallus yaluensis, also known as Yalu grayling, is a putative species of freshwater ray-finned fish from the genus Thymallus (graylings) in the family Salmonidae. It is endemic to the upper Yalu River on the China-North Korea border.[1]

Thymallus yaluensis
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Salmoniformes
Family: Salmonidae
Genus: Thymallus
Species:
T. yaluensis
Binomial name
Thymallus yaluensis
T. Mori, 1928

Description

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Thymallus yaluensis is a small fish, the maximum recorded length is {[cvt|20|cm}}.[1] "It has the most beautiful form and fins of a freshwater fish" in Korea.[1]

Taxonomy dispute

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Some confusion exists about the identity of T. yaluensis, as it is very similar in form to the Arctic grayling (Thymallus arcticus), and has mostly been treated as a subspecies T. a. yaluensis,[2] although FishBase treats it as an independent species.[1] According to mitochondrial DNA, T. yaluensis is, however, inseparable from the Amur grayling (Thymallus grubii), and was suggested to be a junior synonym of that.[3] Confusingly, it has also been reported from widely separate regions including Siberia, the Alps in Europe, and the northern Mississippi River drainage in North America.[citation needed]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.) (2015). "Thymallus yaluensis" in FishBase. April 2015 version.
  2. ^ Eschmeyer W (2015) yaluensis, Thymallus Catalog of Fishes, California Academy of Sciences.
  3. ^ MA Bo, HUO Tang-Bin, JIANG Zuo-Fa (2008) Thymallus arcticus yaluensis is a synonym of T. grubii by mitochondrial control region sequences analysis. Acta Zootaxonomica Sinica 33 (2)