Description
Like the other three species of pikeminnow, it has an elongated body reminiscent of the pike. The cone-shaped and somewhat flattened head is elongated, forming nearly a quarter of the body length. Color grades from bright olive green on the back to a paler yellowish shade on the flanks, to white underneath. Young fish also have a dark spot on the caudal fin. Both the dorsal and anal fins typically have nine rays. The pharyngeal teeth are long and hooked.
The reports of 6 ft individuals are estimates from skeletal remains but a number of community elders, interviewed by the Salt Lake Tribune in 1994, reported that such individuals were once common. Catches in the 1960s ranged up to 60 cm for 11 year old fish but, by the early 1990s, maximum sizes reached no more than 34 cm. Biologists now consider the average size of an adult pikeminnow to be between 4 and 9 pounds, and reports of the fish latterly exceeding 3 feet in length are now in question.
Read more about this topic: Colorado Pikeminnow
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“An intentional object is given by a word or a phrase which gives a description under which.”
—Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (b. 1919)
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)