Leuciscus schmidti - The Schmidt's dace is a member of the Cyprinidae family, more commonly referred to as the carp or minnow family. It is the largest of the fish families and contains over 2,400 species. The Schmidt’s dace has an average length of 27 centimeters and is limited to Kyrgyzstan’s Lake Issyk-kul. It feeds mainly on insect larvae, insects, and filamentous algae. Lake Issyk-kul is the 10th largest lake in the world by volume and the 2nd largest saline lake after the Caspian Sea.
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Most of present day Kyrgyzstan was added to Tsarist Russia through a treaty negotiated in 1868 between Russia and China’s Qing Dynasty. Kyrgyzstan was officially incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1876. The Russian takeover and attempts to enlist the local population into the military resulted in many Kyrgyz migrating to either Afghanistan or China. With the demise of the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan became the first of the Central Asian republics to declare itself independent.
