Squawfish or pikeminnows are cyprinid

Cyprinid

The family Cyprinidae, from the Ancient Greek kyprînos , consists of the carps, the true minnows, and their relatives . Commonly called the carp family or the minnow family, its members are also known as cyprinids...

 fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 of the genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Ptychocheilus consisting of four species native to western North America. Voracious predators, they are considered an "undesirable" species in many waters. This is largely due to the species' perceived tendency to prey upon small trout

Trout

Trout is the name for a number of species of freshwater and saltwater fish belonging to the Salmoninae subfamily of the family Salmonidae. Salmon belong to the same family as trout. Most salmon species spend almost all their lives in salt water...

 and salmon

Salmon

Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...

. First known in western science by the common name Columbia River Dace, the four species all became lumped under the offensive name "squawfish." In 1999, the American Fisheries Society adopted "pikeminnow" as the name it recommends, because Native Americans

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 considered "squaw

Squaw

Squaw is an English language loan-word, used as a noun or adjective, whose present meaning is an indigenous woman of North America. It is derived from the eastern Algonquian morpheme meaning 'woman' that appears in numerous Algonquian languages variously spelled squa, skwa, esqua, sqeh, skwe, que,...

fish" offensive.

The Colorado pikeminnow

Colorado pikeminnow

The Colorado pikeminnow Ptychocheilus lucius is the largest cyprinid fish of North America and one of the largest in the world, with reports of individuals up to 6 ft long and weighing over 100 pounds...

, P. lucius, is the largest member of the genus, averaging 4 to 9 pound

Pound (mass)

The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the Imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement...

s (2 to 4 kg

Kilogram

The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water...

) in adult fish with occasional specimens up to 25 pounds (11 kg). There are historical and anecdotal reports of Colorado pikeminnows nearing 6 feet (1.8 m) in length and 80 pounds (36 kg) in weight. The species is near extinction in its native Colorado River basin habitat, due to extensive habitat destruction. It too is considered an undesirable fish by most anglers. Due to this, in addition to huge expense, conflicts with sportfish, and general lack of success, recovery programs for the fish are controversial.

Species

• Ptychocheilus grandis (Ayres
  William Orville Ayres
  William Orville Ayres was an American physician and ichthyologist. Born in Connecticut, he studied to become a doctor at Yale University School of Medicine....
  
  , 1854) (Sacramento pikeminnow)
• Ptychocheilus lucius Girard
  Charles Frédéric Girard
  Charles Frédéric Girard was a French biologist specializing in ichthyology and herpetology.Born in Mulhouse, France, he studied at the College of Neuchâtel, Switzerland as a student of Louis Agassiz. In 1847, he accompanied Agassiz as his assistant to Harvard...
  
  , 1856 (Colorado pikeminnow)
• Ptychocheilus oregonensis (J. Richardson
  John Richardson (naturalist)
  Sir John Richardson was a Scottish naval surgeon, naturalist and arctic explorer.Richardson was born at Dumfries. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University, and became a surgeon in the navy in 1807. He traveled with John Franklin in search of the Northwest Passage on the Coppermine Expedition of...
  
  , 1836) (Northern pikeminnow)
• Ptychocheilus umpquae Snyder
  John Otterbein Snyder
  John Otterbein Snyder was an American zoologist.As a student he met David Starr Jordan who inspired him to enter zoology. He eventually became a zoology instructor at Stanford University and served there from 1899 until 1943. He went on several major collecting expeditions aboard the USS Albatross...
  
  , 1908 (Umpqua pikeminnow)