10 fish facts about rainbow trout

10 fish facts about rainbow trout

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Oncorhynchus mykiss was first identified and named by Europeans in 1792 thanks to German naturalist Johan Julius Walbaum.

Like all salmon species, rainbow trout is part of the same family as salmon, called salmonidae.

The rainbow trout is native to a very small area of the world, including the west coast of North America and Russia's Kamchatka peninsula.

Although they are found in coastal regions, they are actually almost always freshwater fish, living in the cold water tributaries that eventually lead into the Pacific Ocean.

All that said, rainbow trout can now be found all over the world, and bred specifically for both food and sports.

So what makes this personality guy so popular?

Rainbow trout can be found in more than 45 countries.

As mentioned before, rainbow trout is native to only one very specific region of the world.

The answer is quite simple: they are extremely easy to keep on fish farms and very adaptable to a variety of environments.

They are not only good to eat but can also be a great challenge for sport fishing.

Some rainbow trout like to live in the ocean.

Technically, they are actually a subspecies of rainbow trout.

So why are they called steel-headed trout and not rainbow trout?

Well, their scales are brighter like steel since they live in the ocean.

Steelhead salmon are born in fresh water, and will then live most of their lives in the ocean.

Interestingly, they will always return to fresh water to spawn.

Rainbow trout always return to their birthplace.

One of the most interesting facts about rainbow trout is that they will always return to the area where they were born when it's time to spawn.

For most rainbow trout species, this is a relatively simple process, as they tend not to stray far from home.

For other subspecies, like the steel-headed salmon, this is a serious endeavor!

Rainbow trout can lay thousands of eggs at a time.

When it's time to spawn, the female will find a fine gravel in a shallow, but quiet area.

There, they dug a small hole, called a hole, on the gravel floor.

Then the female rainbow trout lays an absolutely insane amount of eggs - up to 3,000 eggs per kg that the female weighs!

After that, the eggs usually take about four to seven weeks to hatch.

The rainbow trout is a predator.

Rainbow trout have been known to eat almost anything they can put in their jaws.

The main part of their diet consists of different types of aquatic insects that feed on larvae, pupae and adult forms.

They are also known to eat terrestrial insects that unfortunately fell into the water nearby.

In addition to insects, rainbow trout also hunt other aquatic species.

They are definitely not picky when it's time to eat!

Rainbow trout has been raised for food since 1870.

Commercial rainbow trout farming has been around since the late 19th century, starting in America.

However, the largest producer of rainbow trout is not the US but Chile!

Commercial rainbow trout farming is also not a small industry, with 666,592 tonnes of fish harvested globally in 2007.

The rainbow trout is an invasive species.

Rainbow trout are in high demand and therefore they are found on fish farms around the world.

Since large-scale demand has always been unavoidable, these fish unfortunately find their way into the surrounding streams, rivers and waterways.

Due to their hunting nature and the ability to survive in almost any condition, they quickly began to hunt native species to the endangered level.

In 2014, they were ranked on the list of the top 100 invasive species in the world.

There is a special kind of water that rainbow trout will never live in.

As we have established, rainbow trout are very adaptable so they can live in almost any kind of water.

However, there is one very important exception - rainbow trout cannot live in polluted water!

In fact, it's because rainbow trout is actually used in water filtration facilities to test for contamination in water.

The largest rainbow trout ever recorded weighs 48 lbs!

In 2005, a man named Sean Konrad caught a world record fish at Lake Diefenbaker, in Saskatchewan.

The fish weighs 48lbs (22kg), but it is no ordinary rainbow trout.

It was actually an escapee from a nearby fish farm, where they genetically engineered their salmon to increase size and weight.

There are fifteen known subspecies of rainbow trout!

There are many different subspecies of rainbow trout, so it is important to separate them into different types.

First, we have the initially identified rainbow trout, the Kamchatka rainbow trout, from which all other species have been classified.

Then there are two types of coastal line, seven forms of the red band, three forms of the Kern River yellow salmon, one form of Mexico, and then a mutation called the rainbow trout.

That's a lot of salmon!

Some people love rainbow trout fishing, some love to eat them and some like their beautiful rainbow trout - it's no surprise they are so popular around the world.

However, let's hope that we can better control them, otherwise we will have nothing but rainbow trout in our waterways!