Endangered
Kirikuchi char
Salvelinus japonicus
Kirikuchi char is a salmonid in the family Salmonidae (order Salmoniformes) — Salvelinus japonicus, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
It is usually considered a subspecies of the whitespotted char Salvelinus leucomaenis but was listed as a separate species in the IUCN Red List (1996). Other subspecies of the whitespotted char S. Leucomaenis have, even so, been introduced in the area of the kirikuchi char, that has led to extensive hybridization.
Range and habitat
It is endemic to the Kii Peninsula of central Honshu in Japan. Kirikuchi char remain in two separate headwater streams of the Totsu River system, and they retain little genetic variation.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
Up to 60% of the diet of Kirikuchi char is made up of orthopterans driven into the water by nematomorph parasites.
In crisis
It is the southernmost population of the char genus Salvelinus and is considered a relict in its region. The Kirikuchi Char is endangered due to human disturbances, among them degradation and overharvesting. Additionally, the species continues to become more endangered due to the loss of genetic diversity from hybridization.
Kirikuchi char is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Kirikuchi char, Wikidata item Q3320138. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
