Blue chub
species of fish
The blue chub (Gila coerulea) is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the family Leuciscidae, which includes the daces, chubs, Eurasian minnows and related species. This fish is found in the western United States.
Taxonomy
The blue chub was first formally described as Cheonda coerulea in 1859 by the French biologist Charles Frédéric Girard with its type locality given as the Lost River in California. It is now classified within the genus Gila which is classified in the subfamily Laviniinae of the family Leuciscidae.
Etymology
The blue chub is classified in the genus Gila, a genus proposed in 1853 by Spencer Fullerton Baird and Charles Frédéric Girard. Baird and Girard did not explain what the name alluded to, it may be to the Gila River, although Baird and Girard said the first three species they classified in this genus were found in the neighbouring Zuni River, which they may have thought were both part of the same drainage. Alternatively, they chose the name to give the genus a southwestern United States flavor. The specific name, coerulea is an alternative spelling of caerulea, which means "dark blue". Girard described this species as having a grayish blue back.
Description
The blue chub has its dorsal fin supported by 9 soft rays while the anal fin contains 8 or 9 soft rays.
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This entry incorporates text from “Blue chub” 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.