What types of salmon are there

But not all salmon is created equal, in fact there are six different types of salmon that are sold commercially in the U. If you've ever noticed names like Sockeye or King floating around the seafood section of your grocery store, we're here to clarify the differences. But first, what's most important to understand about salmon is how it's raised. Wild salmon is salmon that is caught in natural environments like oceans, rivers, and lakes. But much of the salmon sold worldwide today is farmed salmon.

Fish farms use a process called aquaculture to breed fish, which are often given a processed feed that's high in fat and protein to produce larger fish. Because they have different diets, the nutrient composition of wild and farmed salmon is very different.

Wild salmon contains more minerals, while farmed salmon is higher in vitamin C, saturated fat, and calories.

Some studies have also shown that farmed salmon may have higher concentrations of contaminants than wild salmon. Both are still excellent sources of omega-3s, but wild salmon is overall better for your health if you can afford to spend a little extra on it. If you're looking to stick to wild salmon, you're going to want to go with Pacific salmon, of which there are five types: King, Sockeye, Coho, Pink, and Chum. It's not that Atlantic salmon is bad, it's just that there are very few Atlantic salmon found in the wild today, due to overfishing and habitat destruction.

So most Atlantic salmon is farm-raised. Read on to learn about the six common types of salmon. Read more: Wild Salmon Vs. Farmed Salmon: What's the Difference? This salmon is deserving of its royal title.

Many consider it to be the best salmon you can buy. High in fat, rich, and large in size, King salmon also known as Chinook is loaded with omega-3s. King salmon have reached up to five feet in size and over pounds in weight, showing up everywhere from the Pacific waters of southern California to the freezing rivers of northern Alaska.

Sockeye salmon, or red salmon, is known for its striking red-orange flesh and strong scent. Who knows though, right? The Black Sea salmon Salmo labrax is a relatively small salmon species that, you guessed it, is only found in the Black Sea and its inflowing rivers. Not much is known about this small salmon type, other than it rarely gets bigger than inches. There are both permanent saltwater and permanent river populations of the Black Sea salmon, but all of them must spawn in freshwater.

The Masu salmon Oncorhynchus masou is another smaller type of salmon that can only be found in the northern parts of the Asian Pacific Ocean. This salmon species is marked by beautiful smaller and bigger dark spots and stripes all over its body. When reaching full maturity, the dark stripes on its flanks will turn a bright red, which is why this fish is also called cherry salmon. The Adriatic salmon Salmo obtusirostris is yet another salmon species that is relatively small in size.

It is also an endemic type of salmon, which means that is native to a single geographic location. In the case of the Adriatic salmon, this location would be the rivers of the Western Balkans in southeastern Europe more specifically in Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro.

The Adriatic salmon, which is also called Adriatic trout or softmouth trout, is hence a strict freshwater fish species that never enters saltwater territories. This salmon type mostly has a greenish body coloration with plenty of small red and black dots. It can also be easily identified by its fairly small and fleshy mouth hence the name softmouth trout. This last salmon species does not exist anymore, but I still wanted to include it in this article, as it is a really interesting case.

The eosalmo populated the waters of the earth during the Eocene epoche, meaning that it lived roughly 56 to 33 million years ago. Fossils of this ancient creature have been found in both British Columbia Canada and Washington State USA and it was determined that this salmon subspecies must have dwelled only in freshwater systems.

Research has also suggested that the eosalmo was an intermediate between the modern salmonids and grayling subfamilies and must have evolved from a grayling-like ancestor. The chinook or king salmon is the biggest salmon species in the world. Many people, including myself, think of Atlantic salmon when this question comes up, but chinooks outway Atlantics by several pounds.

The largest chinook on record was a behemoth of an unbelievable lb that fishermen caught in a fish trap near Petersburg Alaska in What a fight that would be! For the record, the biggest Atlantic salmon ever caught on a rod weighed 79lb 2oz and was caught in the Tana River Norway in The biggest Atlantic salmon on record was a fish of lb. Close, but no cigar!

Of all the major salmon species, the pink salmon is, by far, the smallest one. This salmon type reaches a maximum weight of 15lb and a maximum length of 30 inches. Their average weight is a mere 2 to 5 lb, which is really, really small if compared to the other five salmon species.

In fact, they are a very sought-after game and food fish that, for its size, fights extremely well and tastes excellent. As this salmon type is fairly small in size, naturally, it has a lot of enemies that prey on it, which is why pink salmon have to be plenty in numbers and move around in big schools to survive. Furthermore, pink salmon breed when they have reached the tender age of two and as all of them die after spawning, their numbers have to be immense in order to preserve the species.

Pink salmon are the most common salmon type on both sides of the North Pacific, from Alaska down to Washington State on one side, and from Russia to North Korea on the other. Salmon anglers and gourmets agree that sockeye salmon are the best tasting type of salmon there is.

Of course, all wild-caught salmon make for really delicious meals, but the sockeye sticks out both when it comes to taste, color, and texture. Sockeye salmon have a deep red flesh that is very attractive to the eye, both raw and cooked. Sockeye meat is also extremely tender and, if prepared the right way, will basically just melt in your mouth!

Even though they are distantly related, have fairly similar lifecycles, and behavioral patterns, Atlantic and Pacific salmon can not interbreed. This is due to the fact they belong to different genera and have different numbers of chromosomes. Some researchers have raised concern over farmed Atlantic salmon and their possible ability to crossbreed with Pacific salmon, but so far, studies have shown that this is not possible.

Atlantic salmon is the only salmon species that can crossbreed with trout. More specifically, Atlantic salmon have successfully mated and produced offspring with brown trout, although this only seems to happen very rarely. Some anglers, as well as a few scientists, somewhat jokingly refer to these fish as frankentrout. None of the Pacific types of salmon seems to be able to successfully crossbreed with any trout species.

Almost all farmed salmon that you can buy at the supermarket or that are sold in restaurants are Atlantic salmon. There are also a few European fish farms that grow coho salmon. Atlantic salmon are being commercially farmed in many countries around the world and the market for farmed salmon is growing steadily. Some of the biggest producers are Chile, Canada, and Norway. Here, giant aquacultural salmon farms with tens of thousands of fish in them are supplying the growing global demand.

In particular, developing countries in the third world experience an ever-growing demand for farmed salmon, as it is such an easily produced and relatively nutritive food source. While farmed salmon has a bad reputation in terms of sustainability, salmon farming techniques have made great strides towards greater sustainability, so it's worth looking into the specific source if sustainability is important to you.

Chum Oncorhynchus keta is also called dog salmon for its dog-like teeth. Keta comes from its species name and is a way to get away from the negative association chum sometimes has. Keta is a smaller fish—averaging about 8 pounds—with pale to medium-colored flesh and a lower fat content than other salmon. Chum is usually canned or sold frozen to foreign markets. Actively scan device characteristics for identification.

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