White bream

Description

Blicca bjoerkna, alternatively called the white bream or the silver bream, is a European species of freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae. Blicca bjoerkna is distributed across most of Europe and in adjacent Western Asia. The natural distribution, though, excludes peripheral areas including northern Sweden, northern Finland and Norway, and most parts of the British Isles (except Southern England), as well as the Iberian and Italian peninsulas. Introduced populations occur also in Spain and Italy, for instance. The Asian distribution is in the Caspian Sea and Aral Sea basins and in Anatolian Black Sea drainages. Small silver bream are very similar in overall appearance to the immature common, or bronze bream, Abramis brama, but can be distinguished by their larger scales. Counting the scale rows from the front of the dorsal fin to the lateral line and including the lateral line scale, is the most reliable first step in determining the species. Bronze bream have 13 scales or more, while silver bream have 9-11. The lateral line scale count for silver bream is 44-49, while for bronze bream it is 49 and above, and more usually well above 50. Larger specimens are far easier to discern, because of marked differences in color and body shape. By the time both species attain sexual maturity, they become relatively easy to tell apart from one another, the silver bream's scales remaining a bright, highly reflective, silver colour all their lives, whilst the scales of the bronze bream begin to take on a variety of hues, from dark brown to a light ochre yellow; however, some bronze bream do remain a silvery colour all their lives, depending upon habitat. Confusion arises when sexually mature silver bream and sexually immature bronze bream are cursorily compared in the field, because bronze bream grow to the same size as sexually mature silver bream very quickly whilst still very young, and when they are almost invariably a silver colour themselves. The maximum weight a silver bream varies with the habitat quality, but in optimum conditions can be 1.6 kg (3.5 lb). Nevertheless, in normal conditions, most silver bream never exceed 0.45 kg (1 lb), and in small ponds not even 0.3 kg. The body shape in males and females is subtly different. The female is less compressed than the male, has a rounded form by comparison, and is a little deeper overall, often with a pronounced bulge of the chest. The male is slimmer, and far more compressed.