round whitefish

Open encyclopedia reference

The round whitefish (Prosopium cylindraceum) is a freshwater species of fish that is found in North American drainages from Alaska to New England, including the Great Lakes except for Lake Erie, and in Arctic tributaries of northeast Asia, as well as northern Kamchatka Peninsula and the northern coasts of the Sea of Okhotsk. It has an olive-brown back with light silvery sides and underside and its length is generally between 9 and 19 inches (23 and 48 cm). They are bottom feeders, feeding mostly on invertebrates, such as crustaceans, insect larvae, and fish eggs. Some other fish species, like white sucker in turn eat their eggs. Lake trout, northern pike and burbot are natural predators. Other common names of the round whitefish are Menominee, pilot fish, frost fish, round-fish, and Menominee whitefish. The common name "round whitefish" is also sometimes used to describe Coregonus huntsmani, a salmonid more commonly known as the Atlantic whitefish. Where it was once common, round whitefish numbers in certain localities have been decreasing in the last century due to a number of possible causes.

Wikipedia contributors, Round whitefish; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T05:07:49.052093+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Prosopium cylindraceum (Pennant, 1784)

Name authority

(Pennant, 1784)

Common name

round whitefish

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Teleostei

Order

Salmoniformes

Family

Salmonidae

Genus

Prosopium

Extinction status

Not supplied by this source

Source habitat flags: Marine: no · Freshwater: yes · Terrestrial: no. These do not form a complete habitat description.

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. gigaclassActinopterygii
8. superclassActinopteri
9. classTeleostei
10. orderSalmoniformes
11. familySalmonidae Cuvier, 1816
12. subfamilyCoregoninae Bonaparte, 1845
13. genusProsopium Jordan, 1878
14. speciesProsopium cylindraceum (Pennant, 1784)

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Prosopium. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 141 records assigned to Salmonidae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=282373 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:4MW95. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.