Salvelinus
genus of fishes
Salvelinus is a genus of salmonid fish often called char or charr; some species are called "trout". Salvelinus is a member of the subfamily Salmoninae within the family Salmonidae. The genus has a northern circumpolar distribution, and most of its members are typically cold-water fish that primarily inhabit fresh waters. Many species also migrate to the sea.
Most char may be identified by light-cream, pink, or red spots over a darker body. Scales tend to be small, with 115–200 along the lateral line. The pectoral, pelvic, anal, and the lower aspect of caudal fins are trimmed in snow white or cream leading edges.
Many members of this genus are popular sport fish, and a few, such as lake trout (S. namaycush) and arctic char (S. alpinus) are objects of commercial fisheries and/or aquaculture. Occasionally such fish escape and become invasive species.
Deepwater char are small species of char living below 80 m in the deep areas of certain lakes.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Salvelinus” as genus of fishes. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as genus of fishes. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q548682. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Salvelinus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.