Tag Archives: Austria

Salmo schiefermuelleri Bloch

May Trout (Salmo schiefermuelleri)

This is a quite enigmatic species, described in 1784, whose taxonomic status isn’t clear.

The May Trout is rather known from anecdotes about trouts that inhabited the deep parts of the lakes within the Danube basin in Austria, and which only in the month of May appeared in shallow waters to breed.

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The status of this species, as said above, is far from being clarified, if it indeed was a distinct species it appears to be extinct now.

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Depiction from: ‘Marcus Élieser Bloch: Ichthyologie; ou, Histoire naturelle des poissons: En six parties avec 216 planches dessinées et enluminées d’après nature. Berlin, chez l’auteur 1796

(public domain)

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edited: 11.06.2020

Saxifraga oppositifolia ssp. amphibia (Sünd.) Braun-Blanq.

Lake Constance Saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia ssp. amphibia)

The Purple Saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia L.) is split into about eight to ten subspecies which are found in arctic, sub-arctic and mountainous regions of North America, Asia and Europe, one, the one discussed here, was restricted to the shores of Lake Constance located between Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

The plants grew in the beach-meadows, together with at least two other, local endemic plant species; about 30 populations were known, the last of the Bavarian populations disappeared at around 1959 while others survived until at least to 1978; however, this form is now completely extinct.

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Photo: Robert Flogaus-Faust

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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edited: 02.08.2022