Hucho

a genus of fish of the family Salmonidae. The body is elongated, and the head laterally compressed. The vomer is short, and the vomerine and palatine teeth form a continuous arch. Covered with small scales, the body features small X-shaped and crescent-shaped black spots.

Members of the genus Hucho are large predatory fish. There are three species in the USSR: the Danube salmon (Hucho hucho), the taimen (Hucho taimen), and the Sakhalin taimen (Hucho perryi). The Danube salmon, which measures as much as 1.5 m in length and weighs as much as 52 kg (usually 2–4 kg), inhabits rivers of the Danube basin. It spawns in spring on gravelly soil, and the eggs hatch in approximately 35 days; the fish is bred artificially. The taimen measures as much as 2 m in length and weighs as much as 80 kg. It is encountered in rivers from the upper courses of the Volga and Pechora to the Amur. It spawns in spring in small submontane river tributaries. The female deposits 10,000–34,000 eggs. The Sakhalin taimen measures approximately 1 m in length and weighs as much as 30 kg. It inhabits rivers of Sakhalin and the southern Primor’e. Hucho has little commercial value.

In Russian, the salmon trout (Salmo trutta), an Atlantic salmon, is also referred to as taimen’.