Coregonus sevanicus, Dadikyan, 1986

Freyhof, JÖrg, Yoğurtçuoğlu, Baran, Jouladeh-Roudbar, Arash & Kaya, Cüneyt, 2025, Handbook of Freshwater Fishes of West Asia, De Gruyter : 620

Coregonus sevanicus

Common name. Sevan whitefish.

Diagnosis. Distinguished from C. albula by: ● mouth terminal or inferior, upper jaw longer than or equal to lower one / ● 27–36(38) gill rakers. Size up to about 350 mm SL.

Distribution. Armenia: Lake Sevan. Introduced from Lake Sevan to Lake Issykul ( Kyrgyzstan) in 1973 and from there to Charvak Reservoir ( Uzbekistan) in 1980s. Likely introduced to other lakes in former Soviet Union.

Habitat. Lacustrine, spawns in lakes.

Biology. Pelagic, spawns in autumn and early winter along shores. Feeds on plankton and benthic invertebrates.

Conservation status. Not assessed due to the very poor knowledge about this species.

Remarks. Two species were introduced in Lake Sevan in 1920s: Coregonus ludoga from Lake Ladoga and C. maraenoides from Lake Chudskoe (both in northern European Russia). These two species naturalised and hybridised in Lake Sevan, and an intermediate phenotype was subsequently described as Coregonus lavaretus sevanicus . Introducing this whitefish may have been one reason for the collapse of trout populations in Lake Sevan. Coregonus sevanicus is treated here as a valid species of hybrid origin. However, due to the lack of recent data, we cannot confirm or reject any taxonomic hypothesis related to this species. Coregonus ludoga was also introduced in Lake Tabatskuri in Georgia from the Volkhov hatchery in the 1930s. Still, the species has not been recorded for at least the last 50 years, and we suspect that the population may have been extirpated.

Further reading. Dadikyan 1986 (description); Elanidze 1983 (Lake Tabatskuri); Pipoyan et al. 2012 (Lake Sevan); Kuljanishvili et al. 2020 (introduction).

Coregonus sevanicus ; Charvak Reservoir, Uzbekistan; ~ 190 mm SL.© A. Rozimov.