closest living relative to O. Rastrosus

This is a bit odd, I read about a salmon that lived in California from the miocene to the pleistocene called Oncorhynchus rastrosus also called a Sabre Tooth Salmon or a Smilodonicthys. It was nine feet long and had tusks and was the largest of the pacific salmon.

Does anyone know what it's closest living relative? I am curious if taxonomists have placed it within the current branchings of trout and salmon and where it sits relative to the others.

I am curious if taxonomists have placed it within the current branchings of trout and salmon and where it sits relative to the others.

Here is the taxonomy of the Oncorhynchus genus: http://zipcodezoo.co...nchus_Genus.asp Those fish are Oncorhynchus rastrosus's closest living relatives.
It lists the common names after the taxonomic names.

Does anyone know what it's closest living relative? I am curious if taxonomists have placed it within the current branchings of trout and salmon and where it sits relative to the others.

To the best of my knowledge most of the fossil trouts have not been very accurately placed relative to any of the living species. I've just been looking into this stuff relative to using fossils to date cutthroat trout divergences. There are of course some fossils of the living species, but older oddball things remain a bit mysterious in terms of their relationships.

Cheers
Peter

To the best of my knowledge most of the fossil trouts have not been very accurately placed relative to any of the living species. I've just been looking into this stuff relative to using fossils to date cutthroat trout divergences. There are of course some fossils of the living species, but older oddball things remain a bit mysterious in terms of their relationships.

That makes sense, most pictures i see of this species have it painted as close to either a pink salmon or a sockeye salmon so I wondered if they were closer to these species than the others or is it just artistic interpretation.

On the topic of fossil trouts and salmon is a salmon merely a word for a big landlock trout? i asked as atlantic salmon are close to brown trout and pacific salmon are close to rainbow and cutthroat trout. it makes me wonder if such a thing as a "salmon" exists scientificly.

It's a trout, with big pointy teeth!

My guess is that salmon usually anadromous, and trout are usually freshwater. Though there are exceptions. Trout seems to be a loose term. Steelhead trout are anadromous. Kokanee salmon(land locked sockeye)are freshwater. Brook trout are actually a char.

Almost no common names have any meaning in the broader systematic sense. There are trout in different genera and salmon in different genera. It used to be less complicated, but their taxonomy changed a while back which "messed" things up a little common name wise.

Cheers
Peter

I read about these somewhere on the web I can't remember the sight. But it said they were related to Sockeye Salmon (Large amounts of plankton back then.)& they thought the large teeth were used during spawning. Here is something I found on a quick serch of the web.


Miocene salmon (Oncorhynchus) from Western North America: Gill Raker evolution correlated with plankton productivity in the Eastern Pacific
References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must purchase this article.

Thomas P. Eiting, a, and Gerald R. Smitha,

a Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States
Received 1 September 2006; revised 16 February 2007; accepted 21 February 2007. Available online 6 March 2007.

Abstract
Miocene salmon were more specialized than modern salmon in their feeding apparatus. Computed tomography scans of two late Miocene Pacific salmon reveal unusually long, closely-spaced, and numerous gill rakers (plankton straining structures in the pharynx). Middle Miocene Oncorhynchus rastrosus also has more numerous and more finely spaced gill rakers than living species. The fossils described here, including one new species, appear to be related to modern Sockeye Salmon and Chum Salmon, differing most in the numbers and morphology of gill rakers. These structural adaptations to plankton feeding in a group of fish otherwise adapted to fish predation are concordant with oceanographic evidence for remarkably high plankton productivity in the North Pacific Ocean during the middle Miocene.

Edited by Mike, 15 March 2011 - 12:58 PM.

I read about these somewhere on the web I can't remember the sight. But it said they were related to Sockeye Salmon (Large amounts of plankton back then.)& they thought the large teeth were used during spawning. Here is something I found on a quick serch of the web.

Not to be nitpicky (well, actually, I am being), but they don't specifically state that they are related to sockeye, only that they appear to be. Might seem like a trivial difference, but it isn't. The authors never did a formal analysis of the relationships of the fossil to living species and even if they did that would still just be a working hypothesis. Basically though, their statement is based on their best formed opinion rather than a formal analysis.

Cheers
Peter