Gwyniad | |
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Individual caught in 1904 | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Actinopterygii |
Order: | Salmoniformes |
Family: | Salmonidae |
Genus: | Coregonus |
Species: | C. pennantii
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Binomial name | |
Coregonus pennantii Valenciennes, 1848
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The gwyniad (Coregonus pennantii) is a freshwater whitefish native to Bala Lake (Welsh: Llyn Tegid) in northern Wales.
The population is threatened by deteriorating water quality and by the ruffe, a fish introduced to the lake in the 1980s and now eating the eggs and fry of gwyniad. As a conservation measure, eggs of gwyniad were transferred to Llyn Arenig Fawr, a nearby reservoir, between 2003 and 2007.[2][1][3]
The taxonomy of the genus Coregonus is disputed;[4] some authorities assign the gwyniad to the common whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus),[2][5] and a morphological review in 2012 was unable to find any solid evidence for recognizing the gwyniad as a separate species.[6] FishBase and the IUCN list it as a distinct species, C. pennantii.[1][4]